


Only Time and Tears

by LateStarter58



Series: Love and Resistance: The Tom and Jess Story [5]
Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Anger, Depression, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-02-07 09:56:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18618283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateStarter58/pseuds/LateStarter58
Summary: “She heard him mutter, 'Can you take away this grief?''I'm sorry,' she replied. 'Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.”Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows the events of The Breath, Smiles, Tears of All My Life, and won't really make sense unless you have read that, although I would hope that it stands up on its own. I should know never to say never: I did not think there was more to be said in the story of Tom and Jess, but then Tom reminded me that he was still here.
> 
> This is a tale about grief - about how it affects people, how it changes people, and how they deal with it. If you stick with me, I promise that it won't be all tears.

One

 

_‘Grief reconfigures your world completely._

_Its workings and effects can’t be predicted or planned for, they can only be endured._

_Who you can bear to see, what you can bear to do, where you can bear to go.’_

**_Julian Barnes_ **

 

**England, Summer**

_This is worse than the funeral._

_All these faces, some I know, some I don’t, they are all here for her. Or me. Some are here for me._

_I wish they weren't. I wish I wasn’t._

One advantage of knowing more or less when you are going to die, Jess had told him wryly, is that you can plan your funeral down to the last detail. Tom and her daughters had carried it all out, to the letter: a small family cremation in France, and now this larger memorial service, back here in Cambridge, for friends, former colleagues and the wider family. Just one small bunch of flowers from him, the twin of her wedding bouquet, otherwise a request for donations to a few selected charities. Nobody dressed in black, music that she loved, the remembrance a joyful celebration of a life well-lived.

The room is full. Sidney Sussex College Chapel is a beautiful, intimate space. Its baroque wood panelling, its history, the fact that Jess was a Fellow of the College: all these make it the obvious choice for this occasion, even allowing for her avowed atheism. Tom recognises many of the faces from their marriage ceremony, a few short months ago. Just weeks, really. He tries closing his eyes, but it makes no difference; he’s still here, Jess is still gone. He lifts his head and looks at the pale arches of the whitewashed ceiling high above him, taking a deep breath and gripping his order of service a little tighter. He feels a hand tighten on his arm, attempting to comfort him. The choir is singing Handel, something she chose from _The Messiah,_ and it is piercing Tom’s heart. The music stops and Frances Porter stands, walks over to the lectern and begins to speak. The sound of her voice transports him back twenty years, to the tutorial room, and he feels adrift, lost in time for a moment.

“Jessica Sally Hancock was never supposed to be a Cambridge professor. She didn’t even finish her A-Level studies at school, although none who knew her then or later ever doubted her intellect, nor her ravenous interest in the world around her. But the fact is she did not go to university after school, and she might have been happy to remain a Learning Support Assistant had it not been for our esteemed colleagues at the Open University. And a very good LSA she was, by all accounts, but what a loss it would have been to this University and to the study of European History it would have been. The OU opened up the world of higher education to her, Jess took the opportunity she was given and ran with it, and how... The baton was handed on first to the University of Essex, where she did her MA, then to us here. In return for our small efforts and Jess’s great ones, the world has much to be grateful for: five excellent books, despite them being all best-sellers, a raft of new, young historians inspired by her writing and/or her teaching here in this College or her contributions to her Alma Mater in their History syllabus, and the many hundreds of thousands of people enlightened and enriched by her contribution to the study of Twentieth Century European History. Her impact will soon be amplified by cinema, with the upcoming film based on her book about the French Resistance.  We must be talking about millions who will be taught by her.

And how wonderful a legacy that is, because, as she realised as she waded ever deeper into the waters of academe, my dear friend Jess Hancock wanted, above all else and in one way or another, to teach.”

It is still more or less sunny when they emerge, blinking, into Chapel Court to the sound of a Bach fugue being played on the organ. There is to be a small reception in the Master’s Lodge, but for now the heat of the summer’s afternoon and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the small chapel makes people want to breathe fresh air and see the sky. Tom is tight and stiff from holding himself together, as he has been for days. He had not anticipated that coming to Cambridge would be so painful. But somehow the very stones of the College seem to be made of her and he expects at any moment to turn and see her walking around the corner of the Porter’s Lodge towards him, her face pink and her hair a little messy, held back by her glasses, perhaps, as she juggles an armful of books and papers, scanning the lawns for that wayward student she needs to catch up with.

_It was a July day, hot as only London can get - stuffy, airless, smelly - but he didn't care, because he was in Hyde Park with her. Somehow, he had persuaded Jess Hancock to go for a stroll and a cup of tea with him after the meeting. He stole a glance; she was asking him something about Cambridge. Pay attention, man!_

_“Did you enjoy your time at Cambridge? The city itself, I mean?”_

_What was his reply to that? Did it matter? He didn’t remember any more of that part of the conversation, only how beautiful she looked under the shade of the trees, and how she smelled as he sat as close as he dare beside her on the grassy slope while they sipped their tea. And how imperative it had been to make the woman he already loved fall in love with him, too._

The Master of Sidney Sussex is a few metres away now, talking quietly to Sally, her father and Frances. They glance in Tom’s direction and he feels his stomach clench. He doesn’t want to do anything, he doesn't want to be there, he certainly doesn't want to go with them to the Lodge for sandwiches and drinks, or whatever is next on the agenda. He doesn't need another conversation about how marvellous she was. He doesn’t need to hear anyone else telling him how terrible they feel, how sorry they are, how bravely she faced it all, how bravely he faced it all, how good it is that he has his children.

He just needs Jess.

 

                                    ___________________________________

 

It’s a beautiful day, darling, his mother tells him. Go outside, Thomas, get some sun, at least. So he drags his aching body - _why does it ache? I’ve done nothing for weeks -_ as far as the terrace and sits. His eyes run over the surface of the garden. Jess adored that wisteria, its shimmering waterfall of blue-mauve. The thought stabs like a knife. The stone paving is bordered by troughs and tubs stuffed with plants and all the love and attention they are given shows. She will never see them.

He doesn’t leave the house much; he drives down to see the children once a week or so, but otherwise he remains within the high walls of this familiar, safe place, except for his medicinal run in the early morning, before the mass of summer visitors are abroad. He pounds the pavement, or tears a groove along the beach as far as Thorpeness some days, but it only helps while he is actually running. Loud music in his ears, arms and legs pumping in time to the beat, he loses everything else, but it is so fleeting.

He stands up, carries his coffee mug across the lawn to survey the view from another angle. In his head he is reliving his most recent visit with James and Nina, four days ago. He has taken to borrowing Sally’s house in Reading, as it is close to Newbury and Sophie and the children, and that is where they spent their family time last week. He cannot bear yet to return with them to his own, empty home in London. He knows he must, but for now he swerves away from it: the image of Nina running in to search the rooms is too painful. It is hard enough to hear her ask where Mummy-Jess is every time. She is too young, and James tries to explain, as of course does their mother, but she can’t understand. Who understands? Tom himself has given up; he just shakes his head now when she asks.

Mostly the three of them go out somewhere together, if the English weather allows it, down to the coast for a beach session or walking on the North Downs - Watership Down, the other week, which was fun for James. For the moment he prefers to avoid the many attractions in the area. The children would adore _Legoland_ , for example, but Tom cannot face a crowd. The time he spends with them is good for him, even if sometimes he has to make himself go, because when they are together, when the children are running and laughing and playing, he feels better, for a while. He wonders if that time is good for the children too.

He walks around the edge of the grass to the wooden garden bench under the large cedar tree. Yesterday brought poignant news from Nottingham: Anna’s daughter has been born, and they are calling her Jessica Mary. Pete’s voice on the phone had been full of the terribly mixed emotions they are all feeling: Tom understands how difficult this is for them. What should be the happiest time of their lives is overshadowed by such deep sorrow. He feels some kindred spirit: he had been pulled in many directions at the time of James’ birth. But at that confusing and troubled moment, there was at least some small hope.

He knows he has to go and see her, she is Jess’s first grandchild. James and Nina will want to meet her, and they should. But it will mean leaving the house. And Aldeburgh. And if - no, when, because he must, he knows that - he does, when he looks into Anna’s face, and sees that little girl without her Granny beside him, it will all be real.

Again.

                                    ___________________________________

 

Even this late on a weeknight there is still a crowd along the river path, and she can’t walk as fast as she wishes, so her anger morphs into a simmering frustration with the tourists and evening strollers who are blocking her way. For every stride she takes, she has to dodge someone or sidestep a child or a selfie-taker and after twenty minutes of this she is nearer to hysterical laughter than fury. What she had hoped to achieve by coming here and glaring, perhaps by staring down the great monoliths of the City, she no longer remembers. She only remembers the feeling: the impotent fury, the need to blame that motivated her, and how important it had suddenly been that she come.

Now she feels, if not foolish, then at least spent. The physical movement - getting out of the chair, changing her clothes, tying her hair back, getting on the bus, running, then walking, stumbling among the masses by the Thames - all that has allowed the crushing emotion to dissipate, to fade, to return to that numb emptiness that characterises her daily life. Her mother’s trite advice to ‘Keep busy’ works quite well, but only when there is something to do. The problem comes when the music stops, when she has to step off the merry-go-round, put down the pen, switch off her computer and stop doing what she is doing. Because then the black tide starts to rise again and when it gets too high, nothing Pippa does can stop it.

                                    ____________________________________

**England, Autumn**

Tom is relatively in control until the titles start rolling. He closes his eyes for most of the film, as watching himself is always something of a trial, even at the best of times, He’s sitting between his mother and Anna, with Sally on her far side, in the same row as the other main cast members, the writers and producers. He hasn’t allowed himself to think about this much, or else he might have anticipated the words that appear on the screen as the final image fades away: _Dedicated to the memory of Jess Hancock-Hiddleston, 1964-2021._

A strangled sob forces itself out of his throat, and Tom covers his face with his hands. He shakes his head, fighting to regain control. He hates to lose it in public, he knows Jess wouldn’t want him to be in a state like this, but he wasn't ready. Should have been, but wasn’t.

“It’s alright, darling.” Diana speaks as softly as she can over the soundtrack music.

His muffled words emerge from between his fingers. “No. I shouldn't have come. I told you.”

Reluctantly he straightens his back again, not wanting to look at any of the hundreds of people around him in the still-dark cinema. Tom is looking away from his mother, along the row, past Anna, who is crying silently, to her sister who is stoically grim, their respective husbands. He catches the eye of Graham Parkinson, the main writer, and sees his eyes are wet, too. He shakes his head again, more vehemently. “This was a mistake.”

 

                                    ______________________________

 

How many moulded plastic seats has Pippa sat on in the last two years, in rooms like this? With well-meaning people, all so desperate to say the right thing, to help, to guide, to support…?

She flinches at the sound of crying from her left; she should have been listening, she knows, to the young man who is speaking now, but she can’t help drifting off. It’s something about the space: the walls covered in marks, stains, a few out-of-date posters, the grubby curtains and torn blinds; the draughty feel of the air, even in this Indian Summer of a September; and worst of all, the gritty surface of the chair. It’s like a million others, carefully designed for maximum discomfort, in a range of nausea-inducing colours. Everything about this room feels wrong. _I shouldn’t be here,_ Pippa thinks.

She raises her eyes and catches the gaze of Howard, the group leader. The corner of his mouth twitches; he knows her well enough by now. He’s probably been watching her as she allows her mind to wander far and wide, away from the sad stories being shared by the others who have gathered here. Her disengagement is probably preferable to the boiling anger she occasionally brings, even now, although less often than in the early days. Pippa is certain that the rest of the group think that, except, perhaps, for Martina, whom she suspects quite enjoys her outbursts, if only for the break in monotony they signify. Suddenly she recognises that she is wasting her time, and not contributing anything to the general good. And that she can’t breathe in the atmosphere of this pointless session, so she stands, and nodding to Howard, she makes for the door.

The entrance lobby of the Unitarian Hall is not the most private of places, so Howard is discreet when he catches up with her before she reaches the front doors. “Pippa, leaving so soon?”

She stops but doesn’t turn to face him. “Yes...I... I… I have a bit of a headache.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Perhaps next week you could speak to the group? It’s been a while.”

She shrugs. They both know this is unlikely. “Sorry, gotta go. I’ve got loads of work to catch up on, too. Uni, you know.” Shouldering her bag, she presses her hand to the greasy, fingerprint-smeared brass plate on the door and steps out into the cloying, unseasonal warmth of the Camden night.

 

__________________________________

 

“I’m going to call her Mini-Jess, Daddy.”

James’ voice is bright and cheerful from the back of the car. Tom looks up sharply, seeing his son’s face in the rear-view mirror. It’s a special extra one he’s had fitted that allows him to see what both children are up to in their car seats without turning around. James is looking down at the guidebook from Longleat and twirling the cuddly snake that is the take-home gift from his _Reptile VIP Experience._ “Oh yes?”

They haven’t been talking about the new baby - who is, technically, Tom’s step-grandchild - on the way back from their day out at the safari park. Tom is tired but pleased that he has survived the day in a crowded place. Nina is fast asleep in her seat, exhausted by the fun she has had on her own ‘experience’, feeding and stroking the giraffes and delighting in being licked by black tongues - “They all wet and smelly, Dadda!” - but five-year-old James is awake and quietly reflective. He has had a marvellous time, telling the keepers about their exhibits, explaining how he cares for his own small collection of coral snakes and geckos. Now, out of the blue, he has brought this up.

“Yes. She’s like Mummy-Jess, don’t you think?”

Tom swallows the lump in his throat.

“Yes, I suppose she is, James. Yes.” _She has her eyes._

“Mummy says that Jess is still here, sort of, because we all remember her, and because we have Baby Jessie and she has part of Mummy-Jess inside her.”

Tom has slowed the car and he is looking for a place to pull over because he can’t really see well enough to drive safely. Spotting a pub up ahead, he indicates and blinking fast, turns into the car park. The change in momentum wakes Nina, and she looks around, bewildered.

“We home, Dadda?”

“No, Neeno, but not far.” He reaches for his water bottle. His mother offered to come along; perhaps he should have allowed it, but he wants this special time alone with his children. He needs it - it is the only thing that survives undamaged from before. Breathing deeply, he thinks about the day, and the fun they have had and how he was again able to lose himself in their innocent happiness, even amongst the masses at Longleat. He is recovering his composure now. He glances back at James, who is gazing out of the window, apparently unconcerned. _He is accustomed to seeing me distressed. It is his new normal._

He’s had a pleasant day with them, visiting a new, exciting place together. Diana has bullied him into going somewhere like that for a change. Tom turns in his seat to look at his son. James has Diana’s eyes, but Sophie’s kindness and intelligence shine out of them. “Mummy is right, Jimbo. We all have a bit of Jess inside us, in our hearts, don't we? When we remember her.” He puts his hand on his own heart and his jaw tightens. “And little Baby Jessica has some of her genes - you remember we talked about genes? And when she gets bigger, people can tell her about her Granny. Of course, her Mummy, Aunty Anna, and Aunty Sally, they will tell her all about Mummy-Jess, so she will know all about her.”

“And you Daddy, you can tell her. And me, and Neenoo.”

“Yes, of course we can, can’t we, Neenoo?”

“Yay!” James’ sister joins in, not entirely sure what she’s signing up for but happy to be included.

Tom feels something, he’s not sure what exactly, folding and twisting. Is it that hole inside him getting smaller or larger? Either way, he still has to get the kids back to their mother, so he turns back to face the front, starts the engine and sets off on the final leg of the journey back to Newbury.

 

                        _____________________________________

 

_I miss so many things, not just Jess herself. There is so much I can't enjoy, because it’s simply too painful. I can’t hear some music without thinking, ‘Jess loved this’, or, ‘Jess would like this’; Even the sun makes me sad. James says something sweet or funny, Nina shows me a painting she’s done, or hands me a shapeless lump of playdough that I am supposed to believe is a rabbit or whatever, and I have an overwhelming need to share the moment with her._

_But she’s gone, and she never will be here again. I will never be able to share anything with her, ever._

_And there it is. When will that painful instant of remembering stop? Will it ever? Do I want it to?_

_Ay, there’s the rub…_

_This feeling is almost unbearable, but I want it, I cling to it, because that’s all there is of her now. The remembering, and the pain that it brings. Is that good? I don’t know. Is it normal? Definitely, that I am sure about. Will I always feel like this? I don’t know that either. I suppose I might, but probably it will fade with the passing of time. But I don’t want to imagine a time when I don’t miss her this much, because that would be a second loss. So, for now at least, I can’t let it go, because if I do, then I’d be letting Jess go._

_Even though she told me I had to._

_That’s the other thing I miss about her, more almost than anything else. Jess was always the one I could be completely free with: 100% me. No pretence, no polite restraint. Totally honest and upfront. And she would tell me when I was wrong, when I was behaving badly… But I’m not wrong now, I’m sure. I have to do this at my own pace, and others cannot dictate it to me._

_So no, I am not getting over it. And I won’t be for a very long time._

_If ever._


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom is still at his mother's house as the end of the year approaches, but he cannot stay there forever.

_“It doesn't get better," I said. "The pain. The wounds scab over and you don't always feel like a knife is slashing through you. But when you least expect it, the pain flashes to remind you you'll never be the same.”_

**_Katie McGarry, Pushing the Limits_ **

  
  


**England, Winter**

 

The North Sea is that steel-grey it becomes when the sky has taken on its winter hue, and it makes everything look threatening. Even this most inoffensive of English seaside places is riddled with gloom and foreboding this morning. Tom looks down the stony expanse of Aldeburgh beach and shivers, despite being properly dressed for the weather. He feels a gentle tugging on the arm around which his mother has tucked hers, and even though he would prefer to stay there, looking out into the nothingness, he acquiesces, and they continue their walk slowly, further along Crag Path, past the Moot Hall and the little boating pond, towards the Lifeboat Station.

“I had an email from Sophie last night.” It sounds conversational, but he knows she has been waiting for the right moment to raise a tricky subject. He lets it hang in the air for a few paces before responding as casually as he can muster.

“Did you?”

“She says she’s emailed you but she’s still waiting to hear what you want to do about Christmas. About having the children.” Diana feels him stiffen, and a sigh leaves him, almost involuntarily. “She knows it’s very difficult for you. I know you don’t want to think about it, darling, but the little ones won’t understand.”

He shakes his head, and speeds his pace, wishing he could leave her there to go off and be alone, but knowing he can’t. He can feel the anger rising in him as they pass between the RNLI shed and the high rear wall of the Jubilee Hall, a brief respite from the notoriously vicious East Wind of the Suffolk Coast. His jaw tightens and he shakes his head again, almost without realising. Just the thought of the festive season, falling as it does so close to what would have been Jess’s fifty-eighth birthday, the very idea of presents and feasting, of trees and carols….

Diana clears her throat, and for once her voice has an edge of reproach. “Tom, you have to make a decision.”

He stops walking and turns towards her, stony-faced. “I know!” He looks down, chest heaving, eyes closed, not really knowing what more to say, because the truth is he doesn’t have anything else to add. He takes a few more breaths of the freezing, briny, sea-perfumed air, and tries again, in a softer tone. “Sorry, Mum. Yes, you’re right. The kids should have as normal a Christmas as possible. It’s just that I just… I don’t think I can do it.”

She reaches for his arm with her other hand. “I know it’s going to be very hard, but you have to try, Thomas. We all do.” She swallows. “And you really ought to think about going home, too. Back to London.”

He looks into her face, ready to say it again, more vehemently, but he sees her eyes are also full of tears. He has forgotten that others have loved and lost Jess too. It moves him, for a second. It also makes him furious. He feels exhausted and alone.

 

                                    ______________________________________

 

These movements should feel automatic - how many thousand times has he packed and unpacked in his ridiculous, gypsy existence? He has to go back, he has to make this move, this symbolic gesture. He turns from his task, reaches for the notebook on his bedside cabinet, pauses, and sitting on the bed, opens it to reread the messages he has written to Jess since she died in July. They are mostly questions: what should he do? When will he understand? None of the questions make sense to him, he has no answers. He knows going back to their house in London will force him to consider a return to some degree of normality: to work, to professional commitments. The very idea revolts him. Somehow his once beloved life now seems so trivial, and the thought of it infuriates him. Their house. His house.

It is not Suffolk he has become attached to, it’s not normality he is determined to avoid: he’s paralysed by the thought of being alone in their house. His house.  He can’t face that moment, that horrible, inevitable but terrifying reality of being undeniably alone. He has given in to friends and family who all seem to agree over seeing a therapist. He knows they are right, and it makes him furious. He has agreed to a course of appointments with a woman who comes highly recommended and whose office is an easy walk across Hampstead Heath from their house.

_From his house._

Even that constant, subtle but significant correction in his head is yet another knife in the gut. And each day brings a thousand such little reminders: cruel, unrelenting, exquisitely torturing, and he is starting to become less tolerant of them. Whereas before he folded in on himself, now he bristles and the flares of pain cause surges of anger. What before he visualised as a black blanket, a heavy cloud of despair, now appears to him as a churning maelstrom, occasionally illuminated red with explosions of fury. Why is she gone? Why does he have to be alone? She shouldn't have left him again.

                        ________________________________________________

 

Pippa steels herself. This is the module she’s been dreading, and seeing the details of it on the curriculum almost made her change her mind about the course altogether. She does not doubt her skills in the other areas: she believes she is an excellent clinician... no, she knows she is a bloody good nurse, she knows what she is doing, she has worked throughout her ten-year career with very sick and unconscious patients, but this aspect is tricky for her, now. The nuts and bolts of the psychological side of it all and the minutiae of helping people in extremis, and their loved ones, to cope emotionally: that is still a subject too raw for her to dwell on without some pain.

Nor without the familiar stirrings of that old friend, anger. Anger at the world that did this to them, or more specifically, to Alex. But then, she’s always a little bit angry...

She reminds herself there is no way of avoiding this, because she has decided, on balance, that this is the direction in which she wants to take her career, and she knows, too, that staying in nursing will, inevitably, bring her into contact with people going through similar traumas to her own. Now is as good a time as any to start to harden up. But still, hovering outside the lecture theatre in Whitechapel, she feels sick, her guts want to leave her body at both ends and she’d rather be anywhere else. Not all of it will be terrible, she tells herself, not all of it will hurt. _I can do this, I can get through it._

And yet, still she dithers, stuck, frozen to this spot close to the concrete wall, staring at the floor. It is a place and a posture she has come to know well.Miraculously, moments later she is saved from this inertia by a group of other students who brush past her and into the hall, chatting excitedly; she allows herself to be swept up and carried along on the tide. What cannot be cured, must be endured.

 

                                    ____________________________________

 

“No.”

“Too late, Tom, it’s happening.”

He stands up and walks across the floor, casting a glare at the Christmas tree he has reluctantly erected in the corner. “No, it isn’t, Sally. And I think it’s really unfair of you to try and-”

“It’s not unfair. You know perfectly well Mum... She’d hate it, Tom. She would be upset that you’ve cut yourself off like this.” Jess’s daughter looks at him kindly but firmly. He is only a few years older than her, and she still, sometimes, remembers her hesitation about the type of relationship they could have. Would they become friends? Would she see him as a brother? She remembers talking to her Mum about this, the uncharted territory of modern family bonds, unconventional age gaps, celebrity status. Soon, she ceased to feel the need to define their bond, they were simply family and she cherished it. It is painful for her to see him as he is, pale, subdued, a black and white shadow of the vibrant version of himself. She thought of the ways grief and death change people physically, how she saw that in her shoulders, her own eyes. The past few months have been hard enough on everyone. But lately, Sally has been feeling something new: she has been wondering more actively what comes next. Friends have told her that she was just resilient, that her survival instincts started to fire up. She has always been the rational one, able to step outside herself and take stock, apply her professional training to her own situation… But there is so much at stake now. She did not know how to define it herself, except for a profound need to understand how they could, and should, continue to function as a family. She had lost her mother, and she could barely deal with that. What she could not fathom was the idea of losing everyone else as well. She had to find the way for them to still be together, stay together. To maintain their bond.

So, after considering what her mother might have done in the same situation, Sally has arranged a small get-together a few days from now as a not-so-subtle way, perhaps, of starting the process of defining their new life. Or at least, to attempt to. She knew Tom would be the hardest to convince, so she has decided to present him with a _fait accompli:_ she has invited a few of Tom & Jess’s closest friends and family to gather at his house on what would have been Jess’s birthday in early January. New Year, new start. And as anticipated, he isn’t taking it well.

“I’m not cutting myself off! I just don’t want to have the same conversations…”

“You are, Tom. When was the last time you saw Ben & Sophie? You and Mum used to have dinner with them once a month!”

“Well, your Mum is no longer here, is she, Sally?” He can’t help but snap at her; he feels cornered, pressured; he just wants everything to stop and everyone to leave him alone.

Sally is hurt but she knows the pain that triggers Tom’s response. She fights back her tears and takes a deep breath. “Tom, we have to figure this out. All of us, together. You know Mum would have. She’d want you, and Ben and Joe, and me and your Mum and Emma, and everyone to be raising a glass to her on her birthday. She would not want you to be sitting here alone, she’d want you, all of us, to be surrounded by people we love.”

Tom looks at her sharply. He sees her pain, and feels his anger dissipate a bit. _But..._  
“Surrounded by people?” He shakes his head. “Sally, I’m sorry, I’m sorry about everything but no, I don’t think I… I can’t.”

“Me too, Tom. I’m also sorry about everything but I’m afraid this is happening, and it really should happen here. In your house.”

Tom glares at Jess’s younger daughter. She is very like her mother in appearance: same height and colouring, but with a little more of her father in her facial features. More to the point, she has that steady strength and steely core that he recognises only too well - there is no point in continuing to resist. He slumps a little and Sally knows she is victorious. “How many?” he asks, disconsolate.

“Only about ten or twelve people.”

“Twelve?” Only? That sounds like a crowd to him, milling around in his spacious living-room, filling it with life. How Jess would have loved it… “I don’t suppose I can object, can I?”

“You shouldn’t, no. And you can’t. Good, right. Well, we can talk about it nearer the time, but everything will be taken care of. Everything, Tom.” She pauses, seeing his defeated expression. “You won’t need to do anything except be here.”

“It’s a bloody conspiracy.”

“Yes. A much needed one. We need this, Tom, not just you. We all do.”

He grunts, feeling irritated, but not truly annoyed, because he can see it all: the need, the love. It’s all logical, logic has ever been the problem. He just doesn’t have the drive to fight Sally. She might be right, she might be wrong. He has no idea. He just has to focus on getting through the next three days first.

 

                        ________________________________________

 

The house is dark and quiet. The first thing he’s done, now the children have left with their mother, is to go around and switch off all the twinkling lights and unplug that appalling Santa that starts up singing and swaying its hips every time you pass it. Nina loved it, James joined in, but the very sound of it was making Tom homicidal by the end of the first day. It takes all that he has not to stomp it into the carpet.

He knows there was a time, not so very long ago, when this was his favourite season of the year. He couldn’t wait to decorate, he was the one itching to buy a tree, the biggest possible, and he had managed to retain a childlike excitement about Christmas well into his thirties. Even when he and Jess were apart, he had summoned up his enthusiasm for the benefit of James and Sophie. Last year - _was it really only a year ago? -_ they were all together, here, in this house. Jess was pale and weak but she was still Jess - laughing, playing games with the little ones, arranging everyone around the table, and making the most of every moment. Her daughters had joined them with their husbands, and it had been a surprisingly jolly time, considering.

Now he sits, alone in the dark, and contemplates the future. Somehow, he has survived his Christmas with the children. It was as bad as he anticipated and he feels as drained as he expected he would. Nina still does not really understand that Jess is gone forever, and she keeps asking when she will be back. Even her brother is finding it tiresome now, but for Tom, every innocent enquiry is another excruciating twist of the knife. He’s had to bite his tongue a few times, and more often he’s swallowed tears or left the room. He knows that James sees this and sometimes he hugs him without speaking. He hates that his son, at just six, feels the need to comfort his own father, but at the same time he is proud to have a child with such sensitivity and compassion. Fortunately, Nina is still too young and remains happily oblivious.

But now they are gone, and the need for self-control is absent, Tom can sense his anger rising to a simmer again. The family gathering that Sally has arranged is looming, everyone will be talking about Jess, because how could they not? He can’t stop thinking about Jess, he wants to talk about Jess and yet he’s sure he can’t bear the pain of having everyone in their house. His house. Everyone but her.

                                    ____________________________________

 

“This is a safe place, Tom. Say it. I’m not going to judge you.”

He continues to look at the rug on the floor of the consulting room, his eyes following the intricate woven patterns, one part of his brain trying to make sense of them, attempting to decide if they are flowers or animals or abstract shapes. But the remainder of his restless mind is battling with his emotions. He doesn’t understand why he feels this impotent fury and it’s draining all his energy. Gritting his teeth, he manages to speak. “I just don’t know what to do, how to feel.”

The therapist responds calmly. “There is no correct way. I hope to help you to understand your own feelings. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“But why don’t I…? I mean, we knew she was… I knew Jess was dying. It was fast, but it wasn’t sudden. We had time to prepare. Jess did a lot to try to help me, I know. I should have been ready.”

“I don’t think anyone can be truly ready for that. And you have told me that you feel cheated.”

“Yes.” The anger swirls in his gut again, and he is aware his fists are clenched on the arms of the chair. “We never had enough time.”

“No, I can understand why you feel that.” Stephanie MacMillan has seen many grieving patients in the twenty years she has been practicing, and Tom’s is not an unusual state. Especially in younger bereaved partners, who feel, like him, the loss of a potential future. There are some positives from their first few sessions: he has recognised that he cannot stay where he is, stuck in this state of near-catatonia; he has a good, not to say excellent understanding of human emotions, and she believes that between them they will be able to unlock his anger and release it. “Tom, the work we do here is very important. I know you know that. Even in just a few sessions I have observed some changes in your demeanour, your ability to engage here. We know this could be a very long process, with an unknown timeline. But the work we do here is still one-on-one. Introspective. You do the work, I listen and reflect on your words. One of the areas we are trying to address is to find a way for you to become comfortable again in more social situations. You have a tendency for seclusion, and are experiencing tremendous stress and difficulty in connecting with others, adults in particular. I would like to share with you a thought and hear your opinion on it.  I have been thinking you might benefit from some additional therapy, in a social setting. Here me out before you react, please. You might have heard of it as a bereavement support group. It is nothing but a small group of people who are in very similar, yet significantly different positions to you, Tom. Everyone there has suffered meaningful loss. Not unlike you, they struggle to find a way to process and assimilate, acknowledge, and function socially.”

Tom sighs. “Sometimes I feel I really am in a movie after all.”

“They have extremely good counsellors and services. In fact, there’s a young widows’ and widowers’ group that meets not that far from here, once a week - not that you’d necessarily have to go that often - but I think it might help you to meet others in a similar situation.”

“When you say young...?”

“Twenties, thirties, forties...”

“I’m not sure…”

“I understand. Well, we can discuss that another time. We were talking about the _party_ …?”

“Yes. That.”

“So how was it?”

“Ghastly.”

“In what way?”

“Well… not really ghastly, but painful, you know.”

“Uncomfortable?”

“Yes.” He sighs and turns his head to look out of the large bay window, at the bare branches of the trees in her garden being blown around by the gusty January wind; Tom hopes they will hit the window and break the glass, break the silence. The therapist says nothing, waiting patiently for him to continue. “Everyone was, you know, there, trying to be normal, but all I could see was how it was not normal, the empty space where Jess should have been.” He clenches his teeth but it’s too late: tears have overflowed and are trickling down his cheeks. He ignores them. “I felt hemmed in by so many people in the room, I just wanted them to go, to leave me alone. I wanted to scream at them.”

“Of course you did. But you didn’t do that?”

He smiles, transforming his face. “Of course not, I’m a civilised Englishman, my family, for God’s sake, my Mum was there… Everyone was there, but her.” The smile vanishes as suddenly as it appeared as he shakes his head ruefully.

“Do you think it might have helped you to have shouted? Or at least to express the feelings you were experiencing in some way? What do you think would have happened had you screamed at them?”

He looks at Stephanie, somewhat surprised. He laughs his embarrassed, breathy little gasping laugh. “I, er… I don’t know, they would have run away horrified? They’d have had me committed? I don’t know if it would have helped me, I don’t know anything anymore.” He opens his hands and raises his eyebrows.

“Tom, it’s good that you can tell me about these feelings, but I do believe it would be helpful if you start to share how you are really feeling with those close to you. You have to start to flex that muscle. As you said, you don’t know how they would have reacted or whether or not expressing your frustration and pain would have helped you. Tom, you need to start the process of knowing. You need to find out.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“I think you might be surprised, Tom. In my experience, ones nearest and dearest tend to have a good idea of what is going on, and generally feel better and react very well if you share, rather than try to hide your feelings.”

Tom shakes his head again, but less convincingly. He is wondering: but he has been subjected to so much pressure from so many quarters recently that he has become accustomed to simply resisting. Withdrawing. When he does acquiesce, like with the party, he usually has such a miserable time that it seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps if he was completely honest about how he was feeling, they might stop making him do things, they might finally understand the depth of his grief and at least allow him to remain unmolested.

__________________________________________

 

The room is in darkness, save the pool of light her desk lamp casts. Textbooks are open, hand-written notes beside her laptop, but Pippa is far off. Her eyes are unfocused, apparently on the window or perhaps on the view beyond, the twinkling lights of the traffic on Kentish Town Road just visible between the buildings. But she sees nothing in front of her. Memories are playing, like an old familiar movie, in her head. The same one, the one she wishes she could change. The last day. Endlessly, she searches for clues that weren’t there, she relives the final hours and minutes in his company, trying to convince herself she could have stopped it.

Tears are rolling down her cheeks, but she doesn’t feel them, because she is numbed, as always, by this process of self-flagellation. She is angry - of course, permanently - but she is no longer sure who with. Is it Alex’s boss, his colleagues, whose pressure she is sure he felt and could not handle? Or is it herself for not seeing how desperate he was? Or worse, was it her lack of attention that was the last straw?

Or is it, as Howard tentatively suggested to her earlier this evening, that she is, in fact, angry with Alex himself?

                        _____________________________________________

 

The stranger in the mirror still puzzles him, even after all this time. The lines on his forehead are deeper, there is more grey at his temples and in his beard. He likes it, in a way; he feels he has grown into this face, or rather that his face has caught up with this man he has become in the reality of his loneliness.

Sometimes he remembers the foolish, impetuous young man who threw his heart at the feet of an older, wiser woman he had loved from afar and begged her to love him back. When he doesn’t see that man in his reflection, what he actually sees is how much he has lost. And it reminds him of all the pain there has been in the years between.

 

                        _____________________________________________

 

_The human brain is a strange, almost fickle thing. Or perhaps it is more specifically the human mind that is the betrayer, because whatever it is, whether memory or consciousness or perception, every now and then it plays the cruellest of cruel tricks on me. I will be walking back up the hill from the shops, or driving home, and I will forget, just for an instant, that Jess is dead. Even now, after all this time, I will picture her awaiting my arrival, or being surprised by my early return home. And then it will hit me like an express train, as if for the first time._

_Or I can be looking at a view, or a painting, or any one of a million miscellaneous things, and a random image can remind me, with a jolt, that the love of my life is gone. Forever._

_All this happens in the twinkling of an eye, a split-second. And yet the pain is no less for that. And there is no way to prepare yourself, no way to stiffen the sinew, to brace for impact. It is so unexpected, so sudden, so out of a clear blue sky…_

_It doesn’t happen all the time, like it used to, but it still happens, every fucking day..._

_And every time, I ask myself if it will ever stop. Then I wonder if I truly want it to._


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom finally seeks the help of a support group, and discovers more than he expected. He also learns that he is not the only one struggling without Jess.

_“Can I see another’s woe,_

_And not be in sorrow too?_

_Can I see another’s grief_

_And not see for kind relief?”_

**_On Another’s Sorrow, William Blake_ **

 

**London, Summer**

The building is low, squat and plain; dull, even. Uninviting, as all such places tend to be. Tom finds a slightly lop-sided easel just inside the swing doors, holding a flipchart. ‘Cruse meeting - Room 2’, it announces, before listing a range of more enticing options available in other rooms, such as life drawing and WEA classes on ‘Philosophy from Plato to Russell’. He dithers in the narrow hallway while a few people brush past him; this is his last chance to turn back. He is too polite to do it once he has entered the room, even now. He almost turns tail but then he thinks of Jess, of her patient eyes, and how irritated she would be that it has taken him a whole year to get here already. Resigned, he looks around, trying to locate where Room 2 might be.

“Looking for the Cruse group, by any chance?” A tall, fiftyish man (it is hard to tell his age for certain as he is completely bald) has stepped out of a doorway further down the hall and is smiling encouragingly at Tom.

“Umm, yes, that’s right.”

“It’s in here.” A hand is extended towards him. “I’m Howard. I’m the group facilitator. You must be Tom. Stephanie said you might be coming along tonight.”

Tom walks over, takes the proffered hand and shakes it. He feels himself relaxing just a little as the man seems unfazed. That’s a good start. He follows Howard into the room, is shown the refreshment table and introduced to the handful of group members who have preceded him.

Twenty minutes later, Tom is perched uncomfortably on a rust-red plastic moulded chair, one of twelve or so in unmatched colours placed in a rough circle. The others are occupied by a motley mixture of North London folk: men, women, all youngish, all serious-faced, all like him. The woman speaking now is entertaining to listen to - she has told this tale before, he thinks, or rehearsed it. It has the polished flow of a stand-up routine.

“And then he says to me, ‘Well, you’ll be OK to go to that conference in August, won’t you? We have spent all the department resources to get you the speaking spot. We really can’t afford to lose it. But you’ll be alright by then, right? It’s a couple of months away. Things will be better for you by then, I’m sure.’ I just looked at his stupid fat face. How I didn’t kick him in his tiny prick I don’t know.”

“I would have.” The previously silent woman next to Tom speaks in a low, menacing voice.

Howard leans forward and says softly, “Would that have helped, though, Pippa?”

“It would have helped me.” Tom can’t help laughing quietly at that. Pippa glances at him and he sees her eyes are hazel-green and sparkle with fiery life. She returns her attention to the woman who was speaking. “It’s always the same old passive aggressive manipulative crap.” The pitch of her words has lowered even more, almost to a growl. “Just because it’s inconvenient for them, that’s always what matters more… tell him to go fuck himself!”

Deb smiles gratefully across the circle but shakes her head, and there are tears in her round brown eyes, despite the humour in her storytelling. “I can’t though. I need this job, and I do still love it, mostly... but I have said I can’t do the conference. He was obviously annoyed and gave me the ‘you disappoint me’ look so I expect repercussions.”

Pippa leans back in her chair crossing her legs and Tom senses her folding back into herself, the shutters being lowered again. He watches Howard, who is watching Pippa. _That’s interesting. Some kind of dynamic there, not sure what yet._ Another member joins in the discussion, a handsome red-haired man of about Tom’s age whose husband has died, and the atmosphere shifts to a calmer one. Most of the group listen, there is polite back and forth, some debate, the occasional disagreement, but nothing as charged as Pippa’s contribution. The stories Tom hears are depressingly familiar: friends, family, co-workers, strangers who expect you to be ‘getting back to normal by now’; tactless remarks, inappropriate comments, uncomfortable, awkward silences; the pain of living in a world that continues, heartlessly, despite your personal universe having crumbled to dust.

Tom is a silent witness, watching, taking it all in. He is fascinated by the variety among the people: the patient and tolerant  group leader, whom he soon realises is ever vigilant, watching the members carefully, making sure everyone is treated fairly, and gently encouraging to the more reticent; his neighbour the simmering cauldron of fury, mostly silent, but every now and then erupting into glorious life with an angry interjection that enlivens the evening, her brown curls shaking when she speaks; the dark, morose, shy but suddenly verbose Pole, who once he starts, seems reluctant to stop talking;  the outwardly cheerful and witty young Black-British accountant, who it soon becomes obvious is terribly sad behind the façade of humour; the pale, blonde Scandinavian-looking woman, as silent as Tom is, but apparently amused by Pippa’s outbursts, and the clear-eyed, sweet-voiced art-dealer who is so matter-of-fact about his husband’s sudden passing that he almost makes Tom cry.

Death does not discriminate.

Walking home through the dusk, hands in pockets, his mind a maelstrom of feelings, Tom thinks about Jess’s words to him about getting help. It was recalling those, rather than the urging of his therapist that had sealed the deal for him.

_“I’ve been doing some research. You’ll need to join a Cruse group, Tom. After.”_

_“Okay…”_

_“I mean it, Thomas. I didn’t do anything like that when my parents died. I mean, I couldn’t, really, there wasn’t much around like that then. Not for my age-group. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, not properly, and it became so toxic it blighted my twenties. It took me years to work through the pain of it. You need to be able to talk about it.”_

_He shook his head. He didn't want to think about a time after this. He wanted to stay here forever, on the terrace, next to his love, in this limbo. She hadn’t got any worse for a couple of weeks, and he had started to hope. It was foolish and pointless, but he was unable to stop himself. But still Jess kept talking about dying… He looked up at the sky, fading from blue to yellow. Jess shuffled a little closer to him on the lounger, and tugged on his arm._

_“Really, love. Promise me you won’t sit at home brooding like Batman.” He laughed softly, and she smiled. “Say it.”_

_“I promise.”_

_“Good. Now, kiss me, you outrageously gorgeous man.”_

When he reaches his front door he stops, pauses for a long moment then turns on his heel and instead returns to the road and walks the short distance down the hill to the chip shop. He isn’t really hungry, but even now, after a year, there is nothing worse than the unavoidable confirmation that she is gone. Nothing makes it truer than opening the door to his dark, silent, utterly empty house.

 

                        ______________________________________

 

Pippa’s workplace is strange at night. It is unpredictable, often changing from moment to moment. It can be very peaceful, calm almost, with just the gentle beeping of monitors and the rhythmic sighs of ventilators punctuating the silence, along with the occasional squeak of nurses’ shoes on polished floors; all the lights turned as low as possible, so that the patients and their loved ones can get some rest… And then an alarm sounds and all is action, movement, noise and brightness.

Pippa is sitting with her patient; the nurses on the Intensive Therapy Unit are assigned to one person. Because all is quiet, she is reading a textbook and making notes for her dissertation on the psychological effects of intensive care on staff, patients and relatives. She looks up at the young man’s profile beside her, pale and still as death, apart from the regular twitch of the ventilator. His motorbike was struck by a careless driver who pulled out in front of him without looking properly. His brain still functions, so there is hope, but he has multiple injuries, some of which have been repaired in surgery, others which are awaiting his further recovery - or otherwise. It is early days, and he has a chance. She sees the beginnings of a beard on his chin, and she thinks she might shave him later, if there is time before the end of her shift. It’s all part of the care she gives, medical, physical, whatever is needed. Her patient, Jason, works in the theatre, he’s a lighting engineer and designer, his mother told her earlier this evening. He’s at the top of his profession, highly skilled, in demand all over the world.

Like Tom Hiddleston, she thinks.

The newest recruit to her bereavement group was silent during the roundtable discussion two nights ago, but friendly enough before and afterwards, if a bit reserved, not that she was exactly effusive herself. He had watched and listened, she saw that. Of course, he’s an actor, so a professional people-watcher, and if she didn’t know exactly who he was, she might be suspicious. Her natural cynicism has increased since Alex died… But no, he had a legit reason to be there, the same one as the rest of them. As to whether he’d be back for another go - well, Howard seemed to think he would, but Pippa wasn't so sure. They had discussed it after Tom had left, saying goodbye and striding out early, as most of the rest of them, who already knew each other well, were standing around, finishing their coffees.

_“Well, he looked pretty uncomfortable.”_

_Howard smiled. “Unlike you, Pippa?”_

_“Oh no, I love it here.” They exchanged knowing looks._

_The group leader had just shrugged. “I can’t be sure, but I think he’ll come again. He seemed to find it interesting to hear others talking about their experiences, at least. And it’s never easy, is it, the first time?”_

Across the unit, an alarm sounds, bringing her out of her daydream. There is a flurry of activity as staff converge on the other bay. Pippa reaches up and takes her patient’s hand, limp but warm in hers. “It’s alright, Jason. You’re fine. Go back to sleep, love.”

Tom didn’t share anything this time, but Pippa knows it has been a year since his wife died of cancer. When she looked to see if he was for real, she saw it was everywhere, on all the news and entertainment sites: tragic, because they hadn’t been together all that long, as if it was less tragic after a lifetime; theirs was such a romantic tale, because only movie stars and successful writers fall in love in a way that makes a good story, blah, blah…

Pippa’s watch buzzes, a reminder that she needs to take readings and check parameters. She puts her textbook, notepad and all thoughts of Hollywood and actors to one side and resumes her professional demeanour, the one she prefers. It is anonymous, faceless almost, and when she is in her uniform scrubs she is an upright member of society. She begins the meticulous process of recording and checking, and her mind clears. She is swift, accurate, economic of movement, quiet.

The casual observer would never guess that the same woman sometimes spends whole rest days crying in a ball on the floor of her flat, or runs for miles trying to exorcise the anger and frustration she feels, or eats bag after bag of cheesy snacks she doesn’t taste or even remember to swallow sometimes, in an attempt to fill the empty space inside.

 

                        ____________________________________________

 

“Daddy?”

Tom rolls over onto his side and looks at his son, who is supposed to be falling asleep. In fact, the boy promised a moment ago that now that the chapter was finished he really, truly had asked his final question of the night and was, at last, going to be quiet. Instead of admonition, father simply regards son with a serious expression, one eyebrow raised. He has allowed him to share the bedroom - and his bed - as a special dispensation because it is just the two of them tonight. Nina has a fever and a nasty cough, so has remained at her mother’s. Tom has stayed as he said he would, lying on top of the bedclothes for a few minutes, until James starts to drop off. Or at least, that was the plan.

“You still miss Mummy-Jess a lot, don’t you, Daddy?” The six-year-old’s voice is soft, a little muffled by the covers. He is looking at the photo frame on the bedside table. It holds Tom’s favourite shot: his original selfie of the two of them in Hyde Park, taken the day they met.

“Of course I do. Don’t you, Jimbo?”

The blond curls on the pillow bounce. “Yes. It wasn’t the same today, was it? At the zoo. Without her.”

“No. Nothing is quite the same anymore.”

James turns back to look at his father. “Why do I feel so sad, Daddy? Why do I always think about when she was here and feel bad?”

Tom feels his stomach drop.“What do you mean, sweetheart?”

“Inside, Daddy. When will it stop hurting when I think about her?”

_Oh god_

“It hurts you, James?”

“Yes.” He lays a small hand on the duvet, over his own middle. “I get a sore feeling here when we come here and I remember she is not here anymore and I can’t cuddle her again.”

Tom swallows hard and shifts over to be close enough to gather his son against him in a big squeezy hug. He kisses his hair and they are silent for a few minutes, two people sharing their mutual sadness. “I’m so sorry, Jimbo. I know how you feel. It will get better, with time.” A deep breath. “I think it hurts so much because when we love someone the way we love Jess, they are like a part of you. And when a part of you gets taken away, it’s bound to hurt, sometimes for a long time, especially if it’s a big, important part, right?” The boy nods, understanding. “So, there’s a sore place, but after a while, it starts to get less sore, and you start to feel better. But it will always be there, and you’ll never forget them.”

James looks at his father for a long moment, his large blue eyes kindly regarding. “It’s going to be a long time before you feel better, isn’t it, Daddy?”

“Yes, I think it is. But I have you and Neenoo, and Granny and Grandad, and Aunty Emma, and Anna and Sally and everyone. I’m going to be OK. But yes, it’s hard, and it will be a while.”

James snuggles closer into his Dad’s chest and stretches up to kiss his cheek. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, Jimbo. So much. Now, time for sleep.”

“Okay. Nunite.”

Tom goes through their familiar bedtime routine - kiss on the cheek, _‘Door shut or open a little?’,_ a wave and a blown kiss from the doorway _-_ then he descends quietly, his heart full. There are pictures, memories of Jess everywhere in the large open plan living space. Her reading chair, the side table next to it still holding the last few books she was trying to finish before even that became too much for her; photographs, of course, on the walls, on the piano, little snaps propped up against the spines on the bookshelves…. He chides himself for not acknowledging his son’s grief sooner, for not talking to him more. He wonders if he should move, if this house is a problem for the children, and as his mind travels in many different directions, he sees himself, for the first time in a very long time, considering an action. While he always cared deeply about the children, he has been incapable of considering options, of thinking about the future. His life has been at a full stop, still is, but James’ words have moved something in him and he sees that he is able to think about doing… _something_. It is a stupid thought, unfeasible, unrealistic, irrelevant, irritating and yet, also possible. It is also his thought and he acknowledges it.  

He listens for a few minutes at the foot of the stairs, but all remains quiet. The evening is balmy, and the sounds of London are filtering in through the garden door. Tom walks to the kitchen, makes himself a cup of tea, then picks up the script the Radio Three people left with him a few days before and goes outside to sit and read. He still feels a tension in his stomach, a remnant of the distress the conversation with James set off in him. Then he recalls the words of his therapist: “It is hard to see much at all when you are in the depths of a dark cloud. But you will find, gradually, eventually, that you have been able to step closer to the edge.”

 

                        _______________________________________

 

“Well,” he thinks as he walks out onto Golden Square, “I’ve done it.” He hails a cab, but instead of going home as he had told his agent was his intention (and thus could not have a celebratory drink or lunch), Tom asks the driver to take him to Kensington, to the Albert Memorial and Hyde Park. When they get there he finds it is busy, lousy with tourists in fact but he is anonymous enough in his shades and baseball hat, as he was that day, the one he wants to remember.

He walks the same paths, allows his eyes to gaze across the same green spaces and his skin to feel the same warm breeze. He has done this once or twice before, when he has felt a particular need to connect with her. “I’ve done it, Jess,” he whispers when he’s alone, “I’ve signed a contract.” His gut tightens, but it is a good feeling; the anticipation of work, something he knows in his heart he needs. It is a small project, a radio adaptation with people he knows and trusts, a gentle re-entry. “I’m not getting back to normal, Jess, but I am learning to be me without you.” _Slowly, painfully._

He takes a path that weaves between the rhododendrons and as he walks, he thinks about the others he has met at the Cruse group. He has been a few times now, and the best part for Tom is the chat before and after, not the semi-formal, uncomfortable exposure of the circular group discussion, and even better is the little splinter faction - someone called them the _People’s Front of Judea_ \- who reconvene afterwards at the pub for beer, crisps and more relaxed, swearier, franker talk. He has taken immediately to these people: Pippa, _angry Pippa_ , who speaks only occasionally in the group but always passionately, and is much the same even away from there; pale Martina, who is as taciturn as Tom himself at the meetings but who opens up like a flower in the different atmosphere of the bar; sweet Christian, so calm and heartbreakingly honest about his loss; Deb, funny, articulate, clearly still struggling as he is; and grey-bearded Alan, who had not been at Tom’s first meeting. He is solemn, but with gentle prodding from Pippa, he speaks a little. There has been some kind of tragedy in his life it seems, but nobody says what, at least not openly, and Alan is as parsimonious with personal information as Tom. There is a feeling of kinship between the two men though, they both sense it: he is as angry as Tom has been, as indeed he still is at times, and like him, still finding a way to function in his new situation.

He smiles to himself now as he remembers how he had felt as the evening had gone on. He had sensed himself relaxing, and he had laughed - yes, actually laughed properly. He felt comfortable with them. He had not had the all-too familiar, in fact more or less ubiquitous sensation of wanting to leave the gathering, not once from the moment they entered the pub. It is this that has given him the final nudge to take the leap and sign the contract today. It might seem a small step to take, but for him it feels like a massive one.

He feels he is ready, not least because he has people he can turn to for support. The kind he really wants and needs.

 

_________________________________________

 

**London, Autumn**

“Is this strictly speaking allowed, do you think?”

Pippa arches an eyebrow. “What, do you think the Cruse police are going to swoop in and break up the meeting?”

“Sarky cow.” Deb pulls a face. “You know what I meant Pip, is Howard going to tell us off or something?”

“I don’t see why, Deb,” Tom leans over to place a bowl of peanuts on the table, “we’re just a group of mates getting together for a few drinks and a chat at my house, at my invitation. What’s it got to do with anyone else?”

“Nothing, I s’pose…”

“Ooh, you can tell who was Miss Goody-two-shoes at school, can’t yer!”

Deb sticks out her tongue at Pippa, who is pouring wine into her own glass and laughing. It makes the others smile - it’s a very rare sight. Christian looks around as he takes his seat, taking in the room. It is a small gathering, and taking place at Tom’s suggestion. He is still a little uncomfortable in public places, especially as they want to talk about such personal matters. And this group have quickly become good friends. As well as Deb, Pippa and Christian, Martina has come to this, their inaugural meeting. Alan has sent his apologies but he is away on business.

“But if he gets wind, especially now you’ve stopped going to the proper meetings, Tom...”

Tom shrugs. “They weren’t really helping me.” He smiles at the room. “You guys, however…”

Pippa raises her glass. “I’ll drink to that!”

After the toast, Tom makes his announcement. “I’m getting back to work. I’ve just finished recording a radio serial.”

Martina claps her hands. “That’s brilliant! What is it?”

“Dickens. _David Copperfield._ ”

“Ooh, lovely! When will it be on?”

“Not for a few months. Christmas, maybe…? I’ll let you know when they give me the dates.”

Pippa is grinning. “I love Dickens. It’s gonna be great, I bet.”

“Well, I hope so. And I’m going to the States next month to talk to a few people about perhaps doing some films, or TV.”

“You feel ready for this, Tom?”

“I’m not sure, Christian, to be honest, but I feel the need, so I suppose I must be, yes.”

“Well, good for you.”

“Yeah, more power to your elbow.”

“OK, so enough about me. How is your work going, Pippa?”

“As ever. Good days, bad days, fucking horrendous days, but that’s nursing. Mostly OK.”

“And your Masters?”

“On the run-in now. Just a few months left.” She lets out a long breath. “Thank fuck.”

“And otherwise?”

Pippa looks around the room. She sees the pain she feels reflected in every other pair of eyes. She smiles bitterly. “Good days, bad days…” Heads nod. “I’m less angry than I was, sadder, sometimes, more resigned others. I suppose generally I’m getting longer periods of what I call ‘okayness’ now… I don't tear myself apart, mentally or physically like I did for the first year and a half, at least.”

Tom inhales sharply. “Yeah… I was unable to do much at all at first. I just sat for months, basically. I would run every day, but after that I wanted to just curl up and hide.” He closes his eyes as he recalls the deep fog he was in. “I slept a lot, or rather, I lay in bed. I’m not sure I slept much, really.”

More nods and he sees that what he went through is not unusual. The others begin to share experiences from the early days following their bereavements and Tom feels less alone by the minute.

The party breaks up fairly early, before ten-thirty. Ubers are ordered, because only Christian lives close enough by to consider walking home in the autumnal drizzle. Deb and Pippa share and giggle on the way across to Kentish Town about how it was to be in the house of a movie star. After a few minutes the women fall silent and Pippa’s thoughts drift. She’s had a good time, better than she might have expected. She has laughed, smiled, teased. The streets are damp, the lamplight glitters on the shiny pavements and everything looks brighter and cleaner than it has in a long time.

 

                                    _________________________________

 

**California, Autumn**

Tom puts down the phone and walks across the room to the window. The view is a pleasant one - the garden of the hotel, fountains playing in the inevitable, merciless Los Angeles sunshine. He is still smiling, there are still tears in his eyes. Sally is pregnant, so Jess is to be a grandmother again. He laughs bitterly - life truly does go on, and so it should, but how hard that is to bear.

His own life is moving onwards, and his career is starting up again, after a fashion. He thinks about the meetings he has had over the past week, with various executives and casting directors, the usual round, presumably, for someone trying to get back onto the fast-moving train after voluntarily stepping off for over two years. He has made a conscious decision not to be too obsequious: his past work speaks for itself. If they want him, then good; if they don’t, he can probably find enough back home to be going on with. There are a few domestic prospects that Hamilton Hodell have lined up for him which look likely to come off. The radio dramatisation he did was well-received by the producers and is going to be heavily promoted as part of the BBC Christmas schedule, he has been offered some TV work in Britain, and there might even be something in the West End next year… He won’t starve, the children won’t go unshod.

He sits down and reaches for his old, well-worn moleskine notebook. The messages to Jess continue; they keep him sane, they help on dark days. When he feels at his loneliest, it is a way of talking to her. Here, now, with Sally’s bittersweet news so fresh and being so far from home, he misses her again. The pain is raw, the emptiness claws at his gut and he searches for the strength to continue, knowing he must find it. Once he has written a few lines, he picks up his phone again and sends a text to the _WhatsApp_ group now called _PFJ._

 

______________________________________

 

_I have learned something over these past - what is it now? - three years, almost, already: what bereavement takes away from your life is meaning. Why am I doing this? What is it for? Why bother…?_

_The physical presence of the person, that’s the obvious loss, but it is so much more than that. Their life, their very existence gives you a purpose which is suddenly gone. I have found this to be a universal, among every other person I have spoken to on this subject. You spend so long after the death of a partner just searching for a way to carry on, to find a new reason to continue._

_I know I have my nursing career, of course, but… that should have been enough to keep me ticking over at least, but for a while it didn’t seem to me that it was. Apart from my anger, there wasn’t much at all, in fact._

_I am over that now. I think._

_The strange thing is that I was, I don’t understand exactly how, but I discover I was able to start to live again even without consciously finding any kind of meaning or purpose. Perhaps that’s how you have to do it. Perhaps the living comes first, I don’t know. And I am, slowly, finding a new reason for living. It is, as yet, undefined, but it is...something._


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom's acting career is getting underway again, babies arrive, life carries on... In Tom's absence Pippa finally tells her story, and that prompts an even more shocking revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the penultimate chapter. Thank you if you have had the courage to stay with me this far - I know this is not an easy read, and not a fan fic for everyone. Sometimes stories just insist on being told - it has always been that way with Jess and me. She won't allow me to rest until it is done.

“ _You can trust a human being with grief...walk fearlessly into the house of mourning, for grief is just love squaring up to its oldest enemy. And after all these mortal human years, love is up to the challenge.”_

**_Kate Braestrup_ **

 

**California, January**

Nights are the worst.

The cold, the heat, the time that stands still. The empty expanse of sheet beside him, not the faintest sigh of her. Her complete absence. He can only find her in the deepest recesses of his memory. There, she remains unmolested, unchanged by the passage of time. That perfect version of her, no other versions left: how her skin felt against his; the way their legs would tangle.The way she would sigh and roll over, her arm reaching, grabbing, sometimes waking him in the middle of the night. How she would snort in his ear and snuggle up tight and he would wish she wouldn’t because he wanted to turn over himself.

He could have sworn the bed was too small; that unimportant, inconsequential irritation.

His back aches, so he rolls over onto it, eyes open, and stares at the high ceiling. It is beginning to get light, and soon his phone will warn him of the imminent arrival of the car to take him to the set. Another day, another dollar, another job.

Another month gone without her.

Tom pulls himself up, sits on the edge of the bed and contemplates the day ahead. The role is a character one, a guest spot in a successful drama series, one of a handful of jobs that resulted from his October mission to reintroduce himself to the people who matter this side of the water. He has been here for a week already, and there is not much more to do now; a few more short scenes, a couple of things they want to reshoot, and then he should be able to leave for home in time for the planned birthday visit with his mother. There has been some talk of a possible return in the future if this character is well-received, if the show continues to do well, if… future and conditional tenses don’t hold a lot of value to him.

He still feels a constant terrible weariness, and it is so hard for him to function with it weighing him down. He was always so full of energy. He remembers him with some nostalgia, that former version of himself. That vigour returns occasionally now, but only briefly: momentary twinkles in the darkness, little glimmers that burn brightly but then disappear. In its absence, he fakes it, as he had to when exhausted or hungover, but doing that only adds to his bone-deep tiredness. Work has become something it had never been before in his lucky, blessed life: a chore. But still he feels compelled to do it, and he believes that this tiredness will pass, like the other states of being without Jess he has already been through. At least, that is the hope he is clinging to as he drags his heavy limbs towards the bathroom to shower before the car arrives. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he passes and wonders for a moment. Who is that old man? He hardly recognises himself any more. This is another thing grief does, he has found: it multiplies versions of ourselves, plays with reality. Who is he now? Is there anything left of who he was?

Twenty minutes later he is in the back of a large, black, anonymous vehicle, being whisked along the already sunny roads towards his day’s work. He is taking a final look at his script, which is not too challenging, and thinking about the offer he has had from the radio producers who did the Dickens serial with him. They want him to do more adaptations: not just Dickens, but perhaps some what they are calling ‘modern classics’. He is tempted. Radio has its own particular charms, and the pressures are fewer. He remembers a time when he pushed for harder roles, all that talk about playing the whole keyboard of the piano...

He looks out of the window and sees a patch of beautiful garden on a corner as they slow for a stop light. He reaches for his notebook and pen to ask Jess for her advice.

 

                        __________________________________________

 

**London, February**

The _Peoples Front of Judea_ are meeting in Christian’s chic, minimalist flat in Belsize Park this time. They have settled into a routine: wine, salty snacks, chat, then the host - they rotate it now, even Martina takes her turn and they all secretly love reliving their student days, squeezing into her tiny bedsit - will simply turn the conversation to the shared matter of loss, pain and recovery. These get-togethers have become vital for all of them. The talk is cathartic: none of them feels the need to hold back for fear of hurting the others, or shocking anybody.

Even Pippa, who had spent so much time not telling anyone how she was really feeling, is able to be open in this forum. She speaks more with these people about her feelings than she does with everyone else in her life combined, including counsellors and family. She bears her soul; she is herself. Except that she isn’t completely; not yet. But that is for one very good reason: she doesn’t really understand what is truly happening inside. Not yet. But she is starting to believe that she will, with their help.

She looks up at the sound of the doorbell. Christian grins and heads to the hallway, returning with Tom in tow. He is bundled in a thick jacket, a scarf and a woolly hat. His cheeks are ruddy from the cold winter air outside.

“Fucking hell, what are you doing here?”

“Lovely to see you, too, Pip.”

“I thought you were in Hollywood sipping cocktails or something, though.”

“I got back a couple of days ago.” He sheds his coat and sits beside her.

Pippa eyes him. He looks tired, but relaxed. “Seriously, how was it?”

He shrugs, reaching for a glass so Christian can fill it with red wine. “OK. Work, you know. No cocktails. Thanks, Chris.”

“Right, everybody, help yourselves to the snacks - there’s some mozzarella and other bits and bobs on the table - and don’t wait to be told to top up your glasses, for fuck’s sake. Okay, loves?”

“Thanks, Christian. Don’t worry, we’ll drink and eat you out of house and home, dear.”

“I’m sure you will, Martina. Right, who’s going to kick us off? Al? How’s things with you, love?”

The evening drifts from a group discussion into several smaller chats, and by ten-thirty Tom is sitting, still jet-lagged and almost dozing in one of Christian’s white leather armchairs. Pippa is beside him, talking quietly about her job and watching his eyelids droop. “You should be tucked up in bed, Tom. You look knackered.”

He laughs, and sits forward. “Yes, perhaps I ought to get going. I have to drive up to the Suffolk coast tomorrow.” He looks down, his cheeks turning slightly pinker. “It’s my birthday.”

“What? When? Tomorrow?” He nods reluctantly. “Hey, everybody, fill your glasses, it’s Tommy-boy’s birthday tomorrow!”

A round of good wishes and a chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, and they allow him to leave. He smiles as he walks home, striding along the empty, windswept streets. A wary grey cat watches from a hedge as he passes, then sidles up as he spots it and stops, crouching down and extending a hand. He is still tired, but he exudes good cheer. He has been with friends, and strange as it may seem to outsiders, they do not spend their time together wailing or bemoaning their fates. They just share thoughts and feelings with others who understand the shorthand. They do not have to explain, or excuse. And they are never, ever judged.

The cat rubs luxuriously against Tom’s hand, its purring so loud it makes him laugh. “What a flirt you are! You know, I’m a dog person, really.”

_No you’re not,_ thinks the cat, and continues to fling herself shamelessly at him.

 

_________________________________________

 

They are walking along the raised bank of the Alde from Snape Maltings to Iken Church, when Tom’s phone vibrates against his chest. He ignores it at first, but then it rings, and as it might be Sophie about the children, he reaches inside his warm jacket. He pulls a face of apology. “Sorry, Mum.” Diana shrugs. People’s phones are always ringing, especially those of her children. Tom looks at the screen: the call is from Pietro, Sally’s husband. “Hello?”

“Tom… Sally’s had the baby.”

“What? Isn’t it a bit-”

“Yes, six weeks early. They’re both OK. Well, he’s in the Neonatal ITU.”

“Oh, Pietro. Which hospital?”

“Royal Berkshire. Sally’s being discharged tomorrow, they say, but of course we’ll be staying here, until...”

“Look, mate, if there is anything you need, anything I can do, let me know, right?”

“Thanks, Tom.”

“Has he got a name yet?”

“Oh, yes. Davide Enrico.” A soft sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob comes down the line. “Enrico is my Dad’s name.”

“Right… well, Congratulations, Pietro, you’re a father, mate. Give Sally my love.”

Diana, having listened in, pipes up. “And mine!”

“And my Mum’s and from all the Hiddleston side. I’ll come and see you all, if that’s allowed.”

“Thanks. That’d be great.”

“Hang in there, Pietro.”

“Yeah.”

Tom sends Sally a text message full of love. Then he sends one informing Sophie, both because she knows Sally and Pietro, and so she can tell the children about the baby. By this time, he and Diana have curtailed their hike and are heading back towards the Maltings and his car. Two days pass in a flurry of phone calls and texts, arrangements and anxieties, and it is only as he is parking his car outside Sally’s house that he realises that he has hardly thought about himself or how he is feeling since the moment Pietro rang him.

 

                        _______________________________________

**London, March**

“But they’re home now?”

“Yes, and he’s fine, as far as they can tell. He’ll have to be checked on regularly and so on, but the docs say he’s great. But he had us all worried for a while. Little bugger.”

Alan is quiet, and doesn’t meet Tom’s eye as he hands round the drinks. Nobody says much more, and Tom decides to drop the subject. He looks at Pippa who smiles encouragingly but glances quickly at their host’s retreating back. Tom mouths a question: “Sore subject?” and she nods sharply before Alan returns from the kitchen with a plate of hors d’oeuvres.

It is just over a month since the last _PFJ_ meet-up, and Tom is pleased to note a distinct change in one member whom he hasn’t seen for some time. “You’re looking well, Deb.”

“Thanks… so are you, now you mention it, Tom.” She is blushing, and the smile reaches her eyes in a way it hasn't before. “Yes, I feel as if I’ve turned some kind of corner. Don’t quite understand how, or why, but I feel better.”

Martina leans forward to look into her face. “Is it… are you... is it a bloke?”

“No! Christ, no… as if!”

“There’s no law against moving on, you know, if the right person-”

“Moving forward, Martina, not on. I don’t really like people saying it in that way.” There is just the tiniest hint of Angry Pippa in her voice, the one that Tom first encountered in the Church Hall. Her expression is benign, however. “We continue with our lives, we have to, but…”

“Sorry, yeah, you’re right, Pippa. That’s really not what I meant. It just came out wrong.”

Deb put a hand on Martina’s arm. “I know. It’s OK, ‘Tina, we all know what you meant. But no, it’s nothing like that. I’ve moved to a different department, that’s part of it, I think. A new set of colleagues. They’re nicer, for a start off, more collegiate, and I just feel… I dunno, it’s really hard to explain. I feel…”

“As if you have started to learn to live in this new reality?”

“Yes, Tom, that’s it! You too?”

“I think so, yes. I’m starting to, anyway.”

Alan, who has been standing silently behind Pippa, clears his throat suddenly. “Well, good for you, Deb. And you, Tom. Perhaps you both can share the secret with me later. Has everyone got a drink?”

Everyone is saying their goodbyes later when Tom finds himself beside Pippa in the hallway. He helps her into her coat. “Do you live far?”

She shakes her head. “Nah. Literally about three streets over.”

“Can I walk you home, then?”

She starts to decline, then thinks _why not?_ “Thanks, yes, that would be lovely.”

The night is dry, but a bitter wind is blowing down from Parliament Hill, somewhere north of them in the dark. They have gone a few hundred yards from Alan’s little house when Tom clears his throat. “Did I inadvertently touch a nerve with Alan, do you think, talking about the baby?”

She shrugs, and reaches for his arm. He lets her weave hers into his and they walk along a little closer, for warmth, they both tell themselves. “I’m not sure. He’s never really told the story. We know he lost his whole family in an accident. We assume that includes kids, but he never talks about them. In group or when we meet up, as you’ve seen yourself.”

Tom thinks about the house they’ve just been in. It was neat, well-appointed, but sterile. No family photos anywhere. He can’t imagine not having physical reminders of Jess everywhere, but… “I suppose everyone copes in their own way.”

“True, but I’m not convinced it’s working for Alan, are you?”

They walk for a few minutes in contemplative silence. Then Tom brings up the other thing he’s been ruminating about. “What you said, about moving ‘forward’, not ‘on’. I like that.”

“Well, I can’t stand the thought of just getting up and leaving Alex behind, like a forgotten bit of luggage or something. Like something you’ve left on the bus. The heart doesn’t work like that, does it?” Tom shakes his head. “I don’t know if I will ever feel able to have that kind of relationship with someone again, or any kind, actually… I, well, you don’t need to hear any of that, but what I mean is, I can see it as a possibility, but a far-off one, way in the future.”

“Yes, I get what you’re saying.”

“And what about you, Tom?”

“Me?”

“Does it feel like a possibility for you?”

He sighs, closes his eyes. “I don’t know, Pippa, to be completely honest. Perhaps, one day, yes. Right now, I am focussed on work and my kids, and that is taking all the energy I can summon up.”

She laughs. “I know what you mean. Everything seems to use up more energy than before, doesn’t it? I think it’s the price of holding yourself together, emotionally.”

Tom nods in agreement as they turn the corner from one street of handsome Victorian mansions, now almost exclusively converted into flats, onto another much the same. Pippa stops as they reach the first house. “This is me.”

“Oh, right.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

“No problem. See you next time?”

“Yes, of course. Kiss that little boy for me when you see him. G’night.”

He smiles. “I will. Take care, Pip. Night.” He bends and kisses her cheek. Pippa walks up to her door, fumbling for the keys. She opens the door, turns and waves to Tom, who, seeing she is safely inside, sets off down the road with a salute. _It’s the cold, she tells herself. That’s why I’m shivering._

                        __________________________________________

 

**London, Summer**

The date is an impossible one to forget. He has had to write it, type it and read it so often on official documents that it has been burned into his soul. So,he has made sure to fill this July day, the second anniversary of Jess’s death, with his children. He drives down to Newbury to collect them first thing in the morning, the early start being no chore since he has barely slept. Sophie opens the door and sees the redness around his eyes. She says nothing but wraps him in a warm embrace.

“Thanks,” he says, when she releases him. His first wife still loves him, and he still feels unworthy of that love.

“Daddeee!!!” Nina is running full speed along the hall from the family room. “ _DaddeeIsawthebadgerslastnightandMummysaidwemusntfeedthemortheylldigupthelawn_.” A gasp for breath as she hugs his legs and looks up into his face excitedly.

Tom speaks before his daughter launches into another stream of consciousness. “She’s right. It’s lovely to see them cross the garden, but yes, they will dig holes to get worms and grubs, and make a frightful mess. They did that at Granny’s old house in Oxfordshire.”

“Did they?”

He nods. “Grandad was terribly cross. Now, where’s your broth-”

At that moment, a crashing noise and a yelp come from the kitchen. Sophie, who has been an amused spectator to the father-daughter interaction, turns on her heel and heads rapidly in that direction to discover what has happened. The others follow and come upon an apocalyptic scene. Or at least, that is what you might think from James’ reaction. He is sobbing, covered in flour and what looks like batter, as is the worktop and the floor all around; a mixing bowl is upside down beside him; there are eggshells and a whisk on the work surface.

“What were you trying to do, darling?” Sophie is using her kindest voice. Nina is giggling, and drawing resentful glares from her big brother.

“I was making pancakes for Daddy. They’re his favourite. But I slipped off the stool.” Fat tears roll down his cheeks.

Tom strides over and scoops him up to set him back on the stool, ignores the mess and hugs him close. “What a kind, lovely thought, Jimbo! Let’s start again, shall we? If there are more eggs, that is… Mummy?” Sophie nods. “Come on then, and you, Nina, stop being silly and come over here, let’s get mixing.”

Later in the morning, stuffed with pancakes and slightly sticky with maple syrup, lemon and sugar, Tom and the children head to Reading for a visit with Sally and Davide. The baby is growing fast and loves James and Nina, giggling and smiling as they play the fool, sing and mess around for his entertainment. Sally puts him down on his little chair so he can watch them and sits down on the couch next to Tom.

“You look tired.”

“Thanks.”

“Shut up. Lord knows, so do I.”

“Actually, you don’t. You look gorgeous.”

“Now you really shut up, Tom. Are you getting enough sleep, though, love?”

“Usually, yes, but last night…”

“Yeah.” She looks at the three children, all grinning, peals of laughter ringing out. “Mum would have loved this so much.”

Tom nods. His eyes are full of tears; the simple, cruel fact that Jess will never know her grandchildren is one of the hardest to bear. “Not fair,” he manages, through gritted teeth.

Sally squeezes his arm and kisses his cheek. She is crying too. “She’d be glad to know you’re back at work, though, love. And the kids look great. Even Nina is settling down a bit.” She winces momentarily as the four-year-old throws one of Davide’s toys at the wall with surprising strength.

Later that day, after an afternoon trip to the zoo, still a prerequisite for a visit to NW3 as far as his children are concerned, Tom has settled Nina for the night, and James is quietly reading on the sofa while he tidies up.

“Can I play the piano, Daddy?”

“Of course, darling, but better make it tomorrow, now. You might wake Neenoo.”

“Okay. I forgot to do my practice.”

“That’s alright. I forgot too.”

James is looking at the wall opposite. Hanging there is the photograph that was once in Tom and Jess’s bedroom, a shot taken at Sainte Suzanne Chateau of the two of them during their first year together. It is a beautiful image, full of romance and optimism. “Did Mummy-Jess play the piano?”

“A little. She loved music, you remember that? But she told me she’d never had any piano lessons.”

“I still miss her, Daddy.”

Tom throws the last few pieces of Lego he’s retrieved from the rug into the box and walks over to sit beside his son. He puts his arm around the boy’s shoulder and James snuggles up into his father’s embrace. “Me too, Jimbo. It’s two years today.”

“I know. Mummy told me.”

“Did she?”

“Yes. She said you might need extra cuddles tonight.”

Tom takes a deep, shuddering breath. “She’s a wonderful woman, your Mum.”

Later on, when he finally goes to bed, Tom writes a line or two to Jess. He is feeling more at peace than he thought he would be when he got up that morning. A few hours with the children, some time with Sally, all have helped him to remember that things have been better these past few months.

A week or so later, and another anniversary. It is ten years since the day he and Jess met. He makes the now accustomed pilgrimage to Hyde Park and walks the paths, buys tea, sits, contemplates the view; misses her, more than ever. He goes to Bayswater Road and looks up at the hotel where Jess was staying, and remembers the room where they first kissed.

_Only ten years. Ten. And now you’re gone, my darling._

_And somehow, I’m still here._

 

                        ___________________________________________

 

**London, Autumn**

The main room of her tiny flat is full. All of their little, informal, intimate group are there with the exception of Tom, who is away in Scotland filming an episode of _Somethingheisntallowedtosay._ Pippa has laid out the snacks, filled everyone’s glasses, and after weeks of internal debate, she feels ready. She takes her seat on one of the high-backed dining chairs, looks around and decides a swig of wine would be a good start. She is beginning to have second - no, thirteenth or fourteenth thoughts would be more accurate, but she has come so far, worked so hard on herself these past few months, it seems churlish to stop now.

“Right, guys… I wanted to kick us off tonight by telling you about Alex.” She sees Deb’s eyes widen. “Yeah, I know I don’t usually talk about him, but that’s because… well you’ll probably understand when I've finished. My husband Alex went to work one day, a completely normal morning as far as I could tell, another day in a completely normal week. He was exactly the same as he usually was, in fact everything was exactly the same as usual except that he never came home again.” She can feel her resolve weakening but she has to finish. Martina’s hand reaches for hers and she waves it away, shaking her head briefly. “No, thanks, I’m OK. He never came home because instead of going to work, he got on a train out of Liverpool Street, got off at Chelmsford, the first place it stopped. He left the station, got into a taxi, asked the driver to take him to a bridge out in the country and after the guy drove off he… he just waited for the next train.”

“Oh, Pippa, I-”

“It’s OK, I needed to tell you. I’ve been carrying it around for all this time.” She swallows. “Because, you see the worst thing was, I had no idea. None. And I’m a nurse, I’m supposed to notice shit like that, right? I was his fucking wife.” Tears are falling now although her voice remains steady, and the others watch, silently supportive because they share some of what she is feeling, and can empathise with what they don’t. “That’s the part I’ve struggled with - the not realising how he was feeling. He hid it from me totally. He was so stressed out at work he was melting down inside and I saw nothing at all. Not one bloody thing.”

“He didn’t want you to see.” Alan’s quiet voice makes everyone look around. “Believe me. It’s a coping strategy, and it works, until you break.”

Deb asks the question they are all pondering. “Do you know if he planned it, or was it a spur of the moment thing?”

Pippa shrugs. “If he did plan it, well… he was supposed to be working that day, because that was how I first knew something was wrong. His boss at the bank rang me when Alex hadn’t shown up and wasn’t answering his phone. He’d thrown it in the rubbish bin on the train. The police traced it later. After…” Her face darkens. “There was no note. No message. No explanation… “

Suddenly Alan stands up, making everyone stare at him. His face is even paler than usual, his hands are shaking. “My wife, Tessa...she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, but I… I mean, I sort of knew, but I was so busy with my job, and we were living down here, so far from family. I talked myself into believing it would be OK, the professionals told us she was just depressed, and that it was manageable. But one afternoon when I was at work she put the baby and our little boy, who was two then, in the car and drove them all into the canal.”


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”   
>  Oscar Wilde

**London, Winter**

 

Tom wakes in the dark from a formless dream. He gets up, pads on bare feet to the mezzanine, and opens his laptop. Cool, bluish light floods the space, illuminating his pale, anxious face. He finds a file and plays the video he needs: a series of interviews Jess gave to Graham Parkinson while he was working on the screenplay for _Resistance._ It is grainy, disjointed, the sound is sometimes terrible, and Tom has been watching it more and more often as his sense-memories grow fainter. Her face he sees clearly, it is everywhere around him; her voice is more elusive, and he fears losing it. 

Extracts from this video, along with some from interviews with other contributors have been used in a short ‘making of’ documentary that the filmmakers have commissioned to be included on the Blu-ray and DVD release of the film. Initially, Tom resisted getting involved, but finally he was persuaded to take part when a generous donation was pledged to pancreatic cancer research. Graham sent Tom a copy of his original video a few months ago and since then he has watched it a hundred times. It pleases and hurts him; it brings joy and agony in equal measure. Watching her as she talks, hearing her speak is a delight and yet it also makes him cry. He sees Jess happy when they were first together; he winces at the sight of her face, tired, sad and strained during the time of their estrangement. He would not give it up for anything.

 

_The interior of the Première Classe car is cool, but not as cool as the French woman sitting opposite who has been eyeing him up all the way from Paris. Expensively dressed and coiffured, she is making no secret of her interest. He has been studiously ignoring her, diving deeper into his book, staring at his phone or out of the window at the passing countryside. He is nervous, and it is probably showing. He can’t help it; for hours he has been getting increasingly certain that Jess will have changed her mind about him in the two days since they said goodbye at St Pancras. His mind has been worrying at it throughout the journey. She had her doubts from the start, he’d seen that… He shakes his head in an attempt to rationalise. Surely she wouldn’t let him travel all the way over just to give him the brush-off, however politely. No, he hasn’t misread the signs, has he?_

_Still seeking reassurance, he allows his mind to drift back to those first minutes together in his home, to her nervousness, to the way he could feel her heart racing when he touched her. How his own heart raced. “If she turns me away now, I don’t know what I’ll do,” he thinks, and has to swallow tears at the thought. In his own mind, their life together has already begun; a life he had been imagining, fantasising about for a while. These past forty-eight hours apart have frightened him: there is too much at stake._

_He looks at his watch: the TGV is due at his destination in a few minutes. She has messaged to say she is there already: ‘I’m here waiting for you, darling’… His pulse begins to speed up again, a battalion of butterflies start jockeying for position in his stomach. The guard’s voice crackles over the tannoy, announcing their imminent arrival. Tom stands up, gets his bag down from the overhead rack and heads for the exit. He stands by the door and closes his eyes as the train slows. He is afraid, excited, happy, terrified._

_And then he is on the platform and there is Jess, as beautiful, no, more beautiful than he remembers, and she runs towards him. He puts down his case, opens his arms and then he is holding her tight, smelling her hair, feeling her life against him. “Oh, my darling Tom,” she whispers against his cheek, “I know it’s silly, but I’ve missed you so much!”_

He smiles, now, alone at his desk, remembering how he lifted Jess off her feet and swung her round on that hot and dusty station platform, drawing grins and stares from passers-by. The relief, the love, the happiness he felt at that moment are as strong now in his memory. He notices he has been smiling at the memories, feeling the love, knowing that Jess is gone and still feeling the void, but without spiralling down. He can remember moments of their life together the way he just been doing without it sending him into an hours-long fugue.

_I suppose this constitutes ‘acceptance’._ _Something for Steph and I to chew over at my next session._

 

                        ______________________________________________

 

“Is this Alex?” Tom is peering at a photograph held on the fridge door by a magnet. This evening’s topic has been “When/How I Got the News”, and the discussion has been as varied and wide-ranging as usual. Tom was not present when Pippa told her story. He did hear versions of it from others in the group. For some reason, he felt he had to ask her about it himself, in person, about what happened. Not only about what had happened to Alex, but also what made her share it all with the group at last. He realised he felt a real, deep curiosity, for the first time in a long while. He wanted to know. He wanted to understand.

Pippa turns to look and nods, smiling. “Yep. An old one, that, from when we were first together.” A handsome, fresh-faced young man smiles at Tom from the picture, his hair neat and black, dressed in a rugby shirt and jeans and raising a can of beer in salute to the camera; his other arm is around a younger, happier version of Pippa, who is wearing an almost identical outfit. Tom finishes drying the wineglass in his hand, puts it on the worktop and reaches for his phone. “I couldn’t have any pictures of him around for ages. Couldn’t look at them at all.”

“I can see the change in you, Pip.” He smiles at her. She is so much calmer than that closed-off, tense and unhappy person he first encountered in the Church Hall. “We all can.”

“Well, time, and you lot… and work, I think doing the MSc has helped. And just keeping buggering on, I suppose. It was that or…”

“Jess.” He holds the screen for Pippa to see. It’s the selfie from Hyde Park he cherishes. “This is my favourite one of her. That was the day we met.” 

“Awww… she looks lovely.”

“She was beautiful and brilliant. I’d been a fan of hers for a while by then, mind you.”

“Sorry?” Pippa turns away from the sink and dries her hands on a towel. Tom is smiling enigmatically. “Are you saying you were the one who…?”

“Yep. I loved her books, then I saw her on TV. In fact I elbowed my way onto the film, just to have an excuse to meet her.”

“Wow. You mean to tell me the movie star was actually the stalker?”

“Yeah. I had it bad.” He laughs softly, then straightens up and reaches for the last glass on the draining-board. He has stayed behind to help her clear up, keen to continue their conversation. “So, actually, I wanted to ask you if you might be free next Wednesday evening.”

She screws her face to one side, something he finds rather endearing. “Wednesday…? I think so… let me check my calendar.” She returns from the living-area with her phone, nodding. “Yep, I’m on a rest day, Wednesday and Thursday actually, I thought so. Why?” She grins and shoots him a conspiratorial look. “Do you need a plus one for a premiere or something? Will I meet Meryl Streep?”

Tom’s cheeks redden. “Um, no… it’s my birthday, that’s all, and I wondered if you fancied keeping me company. I was thinking of going out for a quiet meal somewhere. I can’t get away to Suffolk this year as I’ll be recording that radio thing all next week. All other plans organised by friends and family sound like too much of a production, you know.”

Pippa looks at him, considering her answer. Letting him walk her home from the get-togethers once or twice, a couple of shared coffees, this pleasant interlude this evening, now this… Their friendship is developing. He talks to her a lot, confides in her, and she has started to do the same in return. It’s nice, it’s comfortable and she is enjoying his company. _Is a meal out together the natural next step?_

“I’d love to.” Tom smiles and she feels her stomach flip a little. _That’s weird._

“Is there anywhere near here you like? I quite fancy a nice Chinese or Thai. That is, if you-”

“There’s one not far from the station, actually. Chinese. I go there sometimes. The food’s pretty good, and it’s, like, a six-minute walk.”

“Sounds perfect!”

 

                                    ________________________________________

 

**London, Spring**

Tom looks at the pile of boxes arranged in his living space. He is going to have to do something. He told them he wanted to read it all, but he had no idea… and he has already been sent a massive file by email. Nina is banging her action figure alternately on the sides and lids as she marches past, singing loudly. James is playing Mozart on the piano at the other end of the room. He stops for a moment. “What is in these boxes, Daddy?”

“Letters, and cards and things, Jimbo.”

The boy squirms to get off the piano stool and skips over. He stops and looks curiously at the nearest stack. “Who from?”

“People who want to tell me stories or how they feel about Jess. People who have seen the film I made, the one about her book, remember that?”

“Mummy-Jess?”

“Yes, Neenoo.”

“Ooh, lemmeeesee!!!” She starts trying to open the nearest box, but it’s beyond her. Tom walks over and lifts her up onto his hip, making her giggle. She is nearing five now, long-limbed, tall for her age but she still loves to mess around with her Dad. 

“Maybe after lunch, Miss Trouble, and when everyone has done their reading and homework. Come on, I’ve made sandwiches.”

Hours later, when the children are asleep, Tom settles down to begin a more thorough read of the contents of the boxes, rather than the lucky dip he had engaged in earlier with Nina and James. The process feels odd; he has received fan mail for a long time, most of it pleasant, some of it on occasion a little alarming or at least unsettling. This is utterly different. For a start, it is not about him, it is about Jess. It is, he has already been told by the film company, from people who loved _Resistance_ , because of the content, the subject matter, the tone; from people who’ve read Jess’s books; from people who’ve studied with the Open University and encountered one of the history modules she wrote, as part of their studies; a sprinkling is from former students from her years at Cambridge. The staff at RDM Productions have opened and sorted it all, putting it into categorised folders for him. 

He starts with the smallest batch. These are from her old students at Cambridge, and he expects them to be the hardest to read. They are rich with personal recollections of a woman he was yet to meet, but somehow what they say is so familiar: Jess’s sarcastic sense of humour, her great - but not infinite - patience, her kindness, her clarity; her determination. There are anecdotes, one or two photographs, even a few copies of her comments at the bottom of essays. His heart clutches at the sight of her handwriting.

He finds that the most touching letters, oddly, are from people who never knew Jess at all: readers of her books, people who simply saw and liked _Resistance,_ those _OU_ students… Somehow their words expressing condolences, their personal feelings of loss, move him deeply. As he reads the words, he feels pain, the familiar intense grief, but he finds that he likes to read what strangers say about Jess - it uplifts him even as it hurts. 

He begins to make piles: he will pass everything on to Anna and Sally so they can read whatever they wish, naturally, but he chooses those that strike him, that move him, that he will treasure. And he puts aside the ones with photos and selects a few notes, cards and letters suitable to read to the children in the morning, with funny personal stories or short messages they can understand or relate to. He becomes absorbed by the task, and it is only when he gets up for a toilet break that he realises it’s almost two in the morning. 

 

                                    _____________________________________

 

**Nottinghamshire, Late Spring**

“Nina, let Jessie have a turn on her swing! Come on…”

“It’s alright, Tom, she’s getting off, look.”

He watches as Pete lifts his toddler daughter into the baby swing that Nina had been lying across, dragging her hands and feet through the soft bark below. He has brought her and James up to Nottinghamshire for a visit with Anna’s family during the half-term holiday. It is one of those rare May days in England, when the sun is warm and the cold wind has decided to stay away. James is happily absorbed in building an elaborate castle in the sand pit (or sand ‘pip’, as little Jessie calls it) at the far end of the decking from where Tom and Anna are sitting having coffee.

“I’m sorry. She’s a bit better now she’s in Reception, but…”

“She’s alright, Tom! She’s her own person.” They both watch as Tom’s daughter runs off towards the bottom of the large garden. “I like her: she has a lot of character. She knows what she wants and she goes for it.”

He laughs. “Yes, that’s certainly true.”

“And she’s bright as a button. It will stand her in good stead in the future.”

“So, how are you? How’s work?”

“Oh, you know, busy, busy.” She smiles, blushing slightly. “Actually…”

“What…?”

“I'll be taking some leave in a few months. I’m expecting again.”

Tom leaps out of his chair and embraces her. “That’s fantastic news, darling.” He manages to maintain his broad smile, but even though his happiness is genuine, he shares what he knows are Anna’s bittersweet feelings.

“And you, Tom? I see you are busy with work, but otherwise?”

“Well, Doctor, work and the kids fill most of my time, what with the travelling. As I’m sure you can sympathise.” Anna eyes him in a way that makes his throat tighten. “I’m still seeing Dr MacMillan regularly.” 

“What about the support group?”

“Oh, I stopped going to that.”

“To-o-o-m…”

“Hold on… I still meet up with some of the people regularly. We have our own little group. We get together at our own homes, and we can talk more freely that way.” He smiles. “It’s surprising how close you can get to others, comparative strangers, when you share the same kind of pain.”

“Not that surprising.” Anna reaches over and squeezes his forearm. “I’m really glad you have friends to rely on for that kind of support.”

Tom nods. “It has been incredibly helpful. We are so different and yet so at ease with each other. What some of them have been through… But, somehow, in spite of our misery, we find a way to have a decent time together.” He thinks about Pippa and the lovely evening they spent together on his birthday: relaxed, even cheerful. “I went to dinner with one of them - Pippa - on my birthday and it was very pleasant. I dare to say I had fun.”

“Daddeee!!! Commmeeeeeerrrrre!”

Tom gets up, shoots an apologetic glance at Anna and starts walking down the garden towards where Nina is on her knees, bouncing and screaming like a banshee. “What is it, Neenoo?”

“There’s a frog!!!”

“There won’t be for much longer if you keep shouting, darling, you’ll scare it away.”

Nina stills and reverts to a stage whisper as Tom reaches her side. “OK, Daddy. Look.” Tom crouches down beside her and they both examine the terrified brown-green creature cowering in the long grass. Nina is itching to touch it but her father grabs her arm before she reaches out.

“If you try to touch him, he’ll hop off for sure, love.”

Anna stands up and watches them, rubbing her lower back. She turns her head to see that her daughter has joined James and is enthusiastically destroying the sandy fortifications he so carefully constructed. It is a sign of his good nature that he is laughing along with the little one. Anna smiles and then sighs painfully: instead of her grief easing with time, she has found that every facet of her life throws a new light on her loss. It’s tough, it doesn’t seem to get easier, but she is not alone. She is acutely aware that each member of the family is experiencing their own pain, undertaking their own difficult journey.

 

                        ____________________________________

 

It’s the last night of Tom’s stay at Anna and Pete’s, and he is enjoying a quiet after-dinner drink with her outside, both of them comfortable with their feet up on soft loungers, watching the stars start to appear in the dark blue sky overhead. 

“Does this happen often?”

“Reasonably. It’s the price you pay for being at his level.” Pete, who was at home but still on-call, has had to go into work at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham where he is a consultant anaesthetist. A pile-up on the M1 has meant all available trauma staff are needed. “And at least he has every other weekend off now, and he doesn’t work anything like the punishing hours we used to when we were both training.”

Tom nods, letting his head roll back and his eyes drift shut. He feels wonderfully relaxed here. Anna and Pete are delightful hosts, and the children get along together very well. All three of them are now conked out, fast asleep after another day of furious activity.

“So, Tom, tell me more about this Pippa of yours.”

That wakes him from his dozing. “Umm… what do you mean? Like I said, she’s from the bereavement group. She’s just a friend.”

Anna is smiling in a way he recognises. It’s the way Jess used to when she already knew the answer to the question she was asking. “A friend you had dinner with, alone, on your birthday.”

Tom can feel himself blushing. “ _Anna…_ she lives near me, that’s all. I was stuck in London, I-”

“In London, where all of your friends live.”

He stares at her for a moment, then shrugs. “I like Pippa, we get along. I trust her, she trusts me, I think… I hope, anyway. There isn’t anything more than that. I’m not looking for anything more than that.”

Anna puts down her teacup and leans back, folding her hands over her stomach. “Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but why not? Because you don’t feel ready?”

He looks at her for a while, then allows his eyes to wander over the darkening shapes of the garden. She waits for him to marshal his thoughts. “I don’t know, to be honest. Will I ever feel able to contemplate anything more? Maybe. I didn’t think I would, ever…” He winces. “Well… it still feels like too much, too…”

“Too dangerous?”

He smiles gratefully, nodding, and whispers, “Yes. And pointless.”

Anna stands up, walks over and crouches down to hug him tightly. “I understand, darling, I do, but sometimes we just have to take a risk. It’s that or give up on living, and you can’t do that, can you?” She feels him shake his head. “Please, whatever you decide, don’t ever feel you need to seek anyone’s permission, mine or Sal’s, will you?”

“Oh, no, Anna, but-”

“Or Mum’s. Because we only want the same, which is for you to be happy, to have a life after her. She was pretty clear about that, right?”

“She was, yes. As ever...” He nods again, managing a watery smile. “One day.” He sighs, and the old, familiar pain ripples through his body. “When your Mum died, I… I couldn’t imagine how I was going to live at all, let alone imagine starting again with someone new. That still feels like too big a mountain…” He thinks about Pippa, and he feels it again: a slight tingle, an echo of the anticipation he felt before they met on his birthday. The way he feels every time they are going to meet. There is something there, however much he might wish to deny it.

Anna kisses him tenderly on the cheek and leans back on her heels to look into his eyes. “I understand, darling, but I am so happy to hear you say that you can at least see it in your future. I can’t tell you how much.” She hugs him again and he returns her kiss. They stay with their arms around each other for a while.

 

                                    ______________________________________

 

**London, Summer**

The light is fading now, but Pippa can still see Deb’s wide brown eyes on her across the threadbare patch of yellowing grass that passes for a lawn in Alan’s garden. “What?” she mouths silently, but her friend just grins and then replies with an equally soundless “You know.” Pippa shakes her head and returns her attention to the conversation. Whatever has rattled Deb’s cage can wait for later.

They have had a good time this evening. The weather is lovely, the wine has flowed and Alan is looser than he has ever been, talking more freely about himself for once, not just joining in the general discussion or asking questions of others. The catharsis of that night at Pippa’s flat and his sudden, shocking revelation is almost nine months behind him now, and in the time since he has been learning gradually to speak openly and calmly to everyone about his loss. Pippa sees in him the change she once saw in her own mirror: almost a de-ageing, a visible lifting of weight from the shoulders, a return of the ability to see the world clearly, to engage with it fully. It is a process, of course, not an instantaneous event. Alan has a way to go, and there will be many mountains to climb yet, and deep crevasses to negotiate. But he is on the road at last.

The others, relaxed and happy in each other’s company, are rejoicing in this evolution in their midst. One of them is absent, however: Tom is away filming in Hungary. Pippa relayed his apologies and ever since she spoke of him, Deb has been giving her those funny looks. As they help Christian and Alan carry the chairs back indoors, Pippa tackles her friend. “Alright, out with it. What’s eating you?”

“Me? Nothing.”

“Then why have you been looking at me all night as if I’ve grown horns or a third eye then?”

Deb adopts a suitably offended expression. “I dunno what you mean.” She is unable to keep it up, however, and breaks into a grin as they shuffle along the hallway to the dining room to replace the chairs. 

“What?!” Pippa is more than a little irritated by now.

“In a bit.” Deb glances meaningfully in the direction of the others. It isn’t until the two of them are alone, walking up the street towards Kentish Town Road that Pippa gets her answer. “Oh, come on, Pip. Tom. And you. Something’s going on, right?”

Now it’s Pippa’s turn to be evasive. She keeps walking and won’t look Deb in the eye. “No idea what you’re on about.”

“So you didn’t blush like a beetroot when you mentioned his name? And how come _you’re_ the one who gets the message, rather than the group chat?” Pippa looks away, not trusting herself. “Pip? Come on, what is it?” Deb isn’t blind, neither are the others. There has been a growing closeness between the two of them for a while. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that they often leave meetings together.

“He’s asked me if I’d like to go on a proper date. When he gets back from Budapest.”

“Oh dear. And? What did you say?”

Pippa thought for a moment. She had hesitated for a long time, asked him if she could think about it and stewed for twenty-four hours. His call wasn’t a shock, not really. Looking back, they had been gradually moving in this direction for months, but… “I wasn’t sure, Deb.” She stops walking. “It’s not exactly the easiest thing, is it?”

“Of course not, but you are both in the same boat…”

“Yeah.”

“So…?”

“So, I said yes.”

“Oh my God!” Deb’s voice echoes off the surrounding buildings loudly enough to make one person lean out of a window and shout at her to _Shut the fuck up!_

 

                        ______________________________________________

 

**London, Autumn**

The wind that is blowing along the river is colder than she expected, and the light linen jacket she has chosen to wear is barely up to the task. Pippa fastens all the buttons and tightens her silk scarf around her neck, even though she has picked that, too, more for its looks. She should have known that September is capricious; warm sunshine one day, chilly wind and even rain the next. But the weather forecast that morning had been good, which was, she assumes, why he has suggested they meet on the bridge.

She looks up the river, towards the trees of Bishops Park and the dark shape of Craven Cottage beyond it. The wind is in her face, blowing her brown curls backwards, almost lifting her sunglasses off her nose with every little gust, so she turns to gaze downstream, across the traffic and towards Wandsworth, and instead she watches the Thames flowing, grey-green and choppy, slowly out of sight on its way to Chelsea and points east. 

Bridges. Tom couldn't know they still make her uncomfortable. She takes a few steps back towards the ‘Middlesex Bank’, as the Boat Race commentators always call it, and tries to think about something else. 

Like, where he is taking her?

Eleven in the morning is an odd time for a date. On a weekday, too. He’d specifically asked if it was possible, presumably because they were going somewhere best avoided at the weekends. _Or maybe he just thought it would be easier for me, with shifts… Oh, stop over-thinking everything! What am I doing, anyway?_ Pippa silently asks herself that question for the hundredth time that morning. Another chilling blast of wind from the west seems to settle it in her mind and she turns, back towards the Tube station and reaching for her phone, she starts walking, ready to call it off. But it’s already too late, because there he is, his handsome head visible above the handful of others coming her way from the direction of Fulham High Street. He catches sight of her, raises a hand in greeting and waves, smiling. And Pippa forgets why she had decided this was a bad idea.

“I’m so sorry, have you been waiting long? My train sat for ages outside the station.” His cheeks are red from the wind. It tugs at and tosses his greying hair around, too, making him reach up to smooth it back as he speaks, slightly out of breath.

“No, not at all. I was early… I was just…” She gestured vaguely at the river, the bridge. “The wind was a bit much, so…”

“Yes.” That smile again. “I had hoped the weather might be kinder.” He takes a deep breath, pats his sides as if checking his pockets for something. “Oh well, perhaps it will be more sheltered down there.” Pippa’s gaze follows Tom’s finger: he is pointing to the far bank, and the path that heads upstream. “Have you ever been to the London Wetland Centre?”

She nods. “Yes, but not for ages.” _Not since before. In my old life._

Tom opens the small backpack he is carrying, retrieves a baseball cap to control his unruly mop, then offers his arm and they begin walking over the bridge to the ‘Surrey Bank’. “I’ve taken my kids there once or twice. It’s lovely, with plenty to look at and the cafe is very pleasant. I did think, with the forecast being so good, but…”

“I’m sure it’ll be great. And a walk along the river is always good.”

That smile again, and a nod accompanied by a sharp, cheerful intake of breath. “That it is.”

Tom is right: it is more sheltered on the Putney Embankment path than it was on the bridge. Out of the teeth of the wind, Pippa feels herself relaxing, so long as she doesn’t dwell on the fact that this is a bona fide date, as opposed to any of the previous times that she and Tom have been exclusively in each other’s company. Then they were simply two friends spending time together, sharing a meal, a coffee, whatever… just two people with similar experiences, comparing notes, sharing their pain.

Tom glances at Pippa as they walk, and he can see that she is nervous. Good, he thinks, because I’m shitting myself. Was it right to make it clear this is a date? Yes, because if there is something there, then it has to start from a place of clarity, of absolute honesty. And she must be interested in pursuing that, or she wouldn't have said yes.

They pass the various rowing club boat houses that litter this stretch of the Thames, and Tom nods towards a four as they make their way upstream, drawing her attention. They pause to watch as the crew passes, the rhythmic beat of the oars counterpointed by the calls of the tiny cox in the stern of the stiletto-slim boat. The women are serious, grim-faced almost, as alike as mannequins in their lycra, hats and sunglasses, all apparently intent on their task. Pippa wonders what it must be like to lose yourself in vigorous physical activity in that way. The way she used to try to… She is still musing when she feels Tom’s hand, miraculously warm despite the chill wind, slip over hers. “Shall we carry on? I’ve reserved us a table for lunch. I’m sure it won’t be terribly busy, but…” His eyebrows raise with the unspoken implication that they should get shifting, so she nods and as they move off again she allows his hand to stay where it is. 

It has been a long time since a man held her hand, and she has forgotten how comforting, how warm and special it could feel. She squeezes his fingers just a little and she sees his shy smile as he squeezes back, his eyes still fixed on the way ahead. Her stomach lifts inside her, as if she is in a car going over a hump-backed bridge, and she feels she is exactly where she should be on this sunny September day.    

 

___________________________________

 

_“my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping_

_but_

_I shall go on living.”_

**_Pablo Neruda_ **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this - I am well aware that this is not in the usual vein of fan fiction and far from being an easy read. Sometimes stories cry out to be told, and this was one of them. 
> 
> On another note, regular readers will know I often include music in my stories and/or lyrics from songs. I regularly make playlists when writing, too. I made a 'Sad Tunes' playlist for this one, simply to set the mood. But I do like to give my various couples 'their songs'. Tom and Jess had one or two over time, but 'Chasing Cars' by Snow Patrol was one that I kept returning to... As for Tom and Pippa, well, I suppose time will tell.


End file.
